His presentation was so lengthy and ______ that it was difficult for us to find out the real ________ in it.

While war has never been absent from the ____ of man, there have been periods in History which appear remarkably ____.

Virginia Woolf _______ conventional notions of truth: in her words, one cannot receive from any lecture "a nugget of pure truth" to wrap up between the pages of one's notebook and keep on the mantelpiece forever.