A Veiled Mirror

But, in a word to say how I like thee,
For place, for grace, and for sweet company,
Oxford is Heaven, if heaven on earth there be.

—John Davies (1565-1618 (via fuckyeahoxford)

(via nicoleandoxford)

Oxford is not, has never been, and will never been a place. She is an idea. She is a spirit. She is ingenuity. She is that epiphany that one has when writing a literature paper or working on a calculus problem. She is the feeling of connection with human beings who have lived 800 years before oneself. She is that moment one wakes up in the morning from a dream before sunrise, still sleepy enough to contemplate the Universe with a completely open mind. She is the unquenchability of eternal human thirst for knowledge, the crux of human achievement and dignity.

I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am.

—Virginia Woolf, The Waves (via hurryuppleaseitstime)

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby (via fate-my-friend)

modcloth:

“She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.” Adore this brooch featuring a quotation from Louisa May Alcott’s Work: A Story of Experience.

modcloth:

“She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.” Adore this brooch featuring a quotation from Louisa May Alcott’s Work: A Story of Experience.