Oxford Quotes - Page 8

• I drove to Oxford with my van full of petrol and tin cans, as I didn't know there were service stations on the motorway. I pulled up on the hard shoulder and got my cans out. Then I filled up and set off again. That's how naive I was - so much not a cosmopolitan girl.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Girl, Filled Up, Tin Cans

  Source: www.newstatesman.com

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• I recommend Doug Sweeney's recent book [Jonathan] Edwards the Exegete (Oxford University Press, 2015), which is a terrific treatment of the way in which Edwards was steeped in the Bible, so that it shaped the whole of his thinking.

  Oliver D. Crisp

  Book, Thinking, Way

  Source: edwardsstudies.com

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• We've been in lots of places that I suppose, by Oxford standards, would be considered illiterate, but everyone's completely conversant with the idea that here is a number, and that number is above it, and that's too high. It's not a very complicated idea.

  Bill McKibben

  Ideas, Numbers, Would Be

  Source: www.opendemocracy.net

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• When I'm not governing my country any more, I'll go back to taking care of children. Or else I'll start studying anthropology - it's a science that's always interested me very much, also in relation to the problem of poverty. Or else I'll go back to studying history - at Oxford I took my degree in history. Or else...I don't know, I'm fascinated by the tribal communities. I might busy myself with them.

  Indira Gandhi

  Country, Children, Community

  Interview With Oriana Fallaci, sangam.org. December 24, 2014.

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• A dining club which I was involved in at Oxford University invited Sir Isaiah Berlin to dinner, who I believe was probably the greatest liberal philosopher in the 20th century. I sat beside him and we spoke about liberal philosophy and the events of the 20th century all night over dinner - it was unforgettable!

  George Brandis

  Philosophy, Believe, Night

  Source: thebriefonline.atavist.com

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• I read Zuleika Dobson with pleasure. It represents the Oxford that the two World Wars have destroyed with a charm that is not likely to be reproduced anywhere in the world for the next thousand years.

  Bertrand Russell

  War, Years, Two

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• Well, start waving and yelling, because it is the so-called Oxford comma and it is a lot more dangerous than its exclusive, ivory-tower moniker might suggest. There are people who embrace the Oxford comma and people who don't, and I'll just say this: never get between these people when drink has been taken. Oh, the Oxford comma. Here, in case you don't know what it is yet, is the perennial example, as espoused by Harold Ross: "The flag is red, white, and blue." So what do you think of it? Are you for or against it? Do you hover in between?

  Lynne Truss

  Taken, Thinking, Ivory

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• It was in the beginning of the month of November, 17--, when a young English gentleman, who had just left the university of Oxford, made use of the liberty afforded him, to visit some parts of the north of England; and curiosity extended his tour into the adjacent frontier of the sister country.

  Walter Scott

  Country, Book, Gentleman

  Sir Walter Scott (1855). “The Waverley Novels: In Twelve Volumes, Printed from the Latest English Editions, Embracing the Author's Last Corrections, Prefaces, and Notes”, p.327

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• Economists use the word consume to mean "utilize economic goods," but the Shorter Oxford Dictionary's definition is more appropriate to ecologists: "To make away with or destroy; to waste or to squander; to use up." The economies that cater to the global consumer society are responsible for the lion's share of the damage that humans have inflicted on common global resources.

  Alan Thein Durning

  Mean, Use, Lions

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• I really wasn't equipped to be a writer when I left Oxford. But then I set out to learn. I've always had the highest regard for the craft. I've always felt it was work.

  V. S. Naipaul

  Crafts, Regard, Felt

  "The floating man" by James Campbell, www.theguardian.com. December 15, 2007.

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• In Oxford before the war, I had, with this interest in mind, written a short textbook entitled, An Introduction to Economic Analysis and Policy. It was now my intention to rewrite this work.

  James Meade

  War, Mind, Analysis

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• From 1931 to 1937, I was a Fellow and Lecturer in Economics at Hertford College, Oxford.

  James Meade

  College, Economics, Fellows

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• 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.

  William Hazlitt

  College, London, Good Things

  'Table Talk' vol. 1 (1821) 'The Ignorance of the Learned'

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• So poetry, which is in Oxford made An art, in London only is a trade.

  John Dryden

  Art, London, Made

  'Prologue to the University of Oxon...at the Acting of The Silent Woman' (1673)

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• "We, Seth, Emperor of Azania, Chief of Chiefs of Sakuyu, Lord of Wanda and Tyrant of the Seas, Bachelor of the Arts of Oxford University, being in this the twenty-fourth year of our life, summoned by the wisdom of Almighty God and the unanimous voice of our people to the throne of our ancestors, do hereby proclaim..." Seth paused in his dictation and gazed out across the harbour where in the fresh breeze of early morning the last dhow was setting sail for the open sea. "Rats," he said; "stinking curs. They are all running away."

  Evelyn Waugh

  Running, Art, Morning

  "Black Mischief". Book by Evelyn Waugh, 1932.

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• I know of no place where the wind can be as icy and the damp so penetrating as in Oxford round about Easter time.

  Vera Brittain

  Easter, Wind, Icy

  Vera Brittain (2009). “Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study Of The Years 1900-1925”, p.62, Hachette UK

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• In 1960, I went to St. Catherine's College, Oxford, and received the B.A. degree in Chemistry in 1964.

  John E. Walker

  College, Degrees, Chemistry

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• I refused this evening at Oxford University to debate with an Israeli, a supporter of the apartheid state of Israel. The reason is simple: no recognition, no normalisation. Just boycott, divestment and sanctions, until the apartheid state is defeated. I never debate with Israelis nor speak to their media. If they want to speak about Palestine – the address is the PLO.

  George Galloway

  Simple, Israel, Media

  "George Galloway refuses to debate with Israeli student at Oxford" by Warren Murray, Sam Jones, www.theguardian.com. February 21, 2013.

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• I walk to Oxford Street and climb on the number 8. It's freezing and it starts to rain and it's the ugliest bus I've ever seen, rattling down the ugliest streets, in the ugliest city, in the ugliest country, in the ugliest of all possible worlds.

  David Thewlis

  Country, Rain, Cities

  David Thewlis (2011). “The Late Hector Kipling”, p.83, Pan Macmillan

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• Ralston stiffened at the reference to the stupid wager that caused so much pain and unhappiness. He ignored Oxford's proffered hand, and instead met the baron's concerned gaze, and said, "Keep the money. I have her. She's all I want.

  Sarah MacLean

  Pain, Stupid, Hands

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• Wherever you turn your eye—except in science—an Oxford man is at the top of the tree.

  Cecil Rhodes

  Eye, Men, Tree

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• My parents both had Oxford degrees, they read important books, spoke foreign languages, drank real coffee and went to museums for pleasure. People like that don't have fat kids: they were cut out to be winners and winners don't have children who are overweight.

  Arabella Weir

  Children, Real, Coffee

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• For my Oxford degree, I had to translate French and German philosophy (as it turned out, Descartes and Kant) at sight without a dictionary. That meant Germany for my first summer vacation, to learn the thorny language on my own.

  Paul Engle

  Summer, Philosophy, Vacation

  Paul Engle (1996). “A lucky American childhood”, Univ of Iowa Pr

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• I went to boarding school and then I went to Oxford, and I know how easy it is for certain groups of people to become wholly insulated from ordinary life.

  Mark Haddon

  School, People, Groups

  "Mark Haddon: 'What I love about theatre is that it's like being a kid again'". Interview with Carole Cadwalladr, www.theguardian.com. March 27, 2010.

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• David Blunkett and I both take the same view that it is scandalous that someone from North Tyneside, Laura Spence, with the best qualifications and who wants to be a doctor, should be turned down by Oxford University using an interview system more reminiscent of the old school network and the old school tie than justice. It is about time for an end to that old Britain where what matters more are the privileges you are born with, rather than the potential you actually have.

  Gordon Brown

  School, Doctors, Views

  "Brown goes to war over Oxford elite" by Alexandra Frean, John O'Leary and Philip Webster, The Times, May 26, 2000.

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