In 1957, a runaway cow in Guildford knocked down a man on a pedestrian crossing. At trial, the defendant’s counsel argued that the owner of a tame animal was not liable for damage it did that was “foreign to its species.” Since a cow was undoubtedly tame, he would seek to prove that “the cow attacked the plaintiff; if that were so, there was no liability.” This was followed by a memorable exchange:

His Lordship: Is one to abandon every vestige of common sense in approaching this matter?

Counsel: Yes, my Lord.

The hearing was adjourned, and the court eventually decided for the defendant.

John Alexander Smith, Waynflete Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy at Oxford, opened a course of lectures in 1914 with these words:

“Gentlemen — you are now about to embark upon a course of studies which will occupy you for two years. Together, they form a noble adventure. But I would like to remind you of an important point. Some of you, when you go down from the University, will go into the Church, or to the Bar, or to the House of Commons, to the Home Civil Service, to the Indian and Colonial Services, or into various professions. Some may go into the Army, some into industry and commerce; some may become country gentlemen. A few — I hope a very few — will become teachers or dons. Let me make this clear to you. Except for the last category, nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in after life — save only this — that if you work hard and intelligently you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole, purpose of education.”

With Love and with Lust, I often have reckoned,
Whichever comes first soon turns into the second.

(By Oxford English professor Nevill Coghill, 1899-1980.)

“Lately in a wreck of a Californian ship, one of the passengers fastened a belt about him with two hundred pounds of gold in it, with which he was found afterwards at the bottom. Now, as he was sinking — had he the gold? or had the gold him?”

— John Ruskin, Unto This Last, 1860

THOUGH I can never pay enough to your Grandfather’s Memory, for his tender care of my Education, yet I must observe in it this Mistake; That by keeping me at home, where I was one of my young Masters, I lost the advantage of my most docile time. For not undergoing the same Discipline, I must needs come short of their experience, that are bred up in Free Schools; who, by plotting to rob an Orchard, &c. run through all the Subtilties required in taking of a Town; being made, by use, familiar to Secresie, and Compliance with Opportunity; Qualities never after to be attained at cheaper rates than the hazard of all: whereas these see the danger of trusting others, and the Rocks they fall upon, by a too obstinate adhering to their own imprudent resolutions; and all this under no higher penalty than a Whipping: And ’tis possible this indulgence of my Father might be the cause I afforded him so poor a Return for all his Cost.

— Francis Osborne, Advice to a Son, 1656