Oxford quotes
Great Britain - Route 30
Oxford is on the whole more attractive than Cambridge to the ordinary visitor and the traveller is therefore recommended to visit Cambridge
first, or to omit it altogether if he cannnot visit both.
Beerbohm Sir Max 1872-1956
More ‘Going Back to School'
I was not unpopular [at school] ... It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.
Flecker James Elroy 1884-1915
The Dying Patriot
Noon strikes on England, noon on Oxford town,
Beauty she was statue cold-there's blood upon her gown.
Franks Baron 1905-
A secret in the Oxford sense: you may tell it to only one person at a time.
Gibbon Edward 1737-1794
Memoirs of My Life
To the University of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College: they proved the fourteen months the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life.
Grahame Kenneth 1859-1932
The clever men at Oxford
Know all there is to be knowed -
But they none of them know as half as much
As intelligent Mr. Toad.
Guedalla Philip 1889-1944
I had always assumed that cliché was a suburd of Paris, until I discovered it to be a street in Oxford.
Hazlitt William 1778-1830
Table Talk
You will hear more good things on the outside of a stagecoach from London
to Oxford than if you were to pass a twelvemonth with the undergraduates,
or heads of colleges, of that famous university.
Jowett Benjamin 1817-1893
No one who has a great deal of energy will long be popular in Oxford.
Letts Winifred Mary 1882-1972
‘The Spires of Oxford'
I saw the spires of Oxford
As I was passing by,
The grey spires of Oxford
Against a pearl-grey sky;
My heart was with the Oxford men
Who went abroad to die.
Punch 1841-1992
The Half-Way House to Rome, Oxford.
Spooner Rev. W. A. 1844-1930
(attributed)
Sir, you have tasted two whole worms; you have hissed all my mystery lectures and
been caught fighting a liar in the quad; you will leave Oxford by the next town drain.
Stead Christiana 1902-1983
House of All Nations
A self-made man is one who believes in luck and sends his son to Oxford.
Trapp Joseph 1679-1747
(of George I's donation of Library to Cambridge)
The king, observing with judicious eyes
The state of both his universities,
To Oxford sent a troop of horse, and why?
That learned body wanted loyalty;
To Cambridge books, as very well discerning
How much that loyal body wanted learning.
