Karel Čapek

“ Sometimes, too, I dream about the Cambridge rabbit. They made him breathe some gas or other, to see what his rabbity spleen would say to it. I saw him die; he gasped and rolled his eyes. Now he haunts my dreams. God be merciful to his long-eared soul.
What evil am I to say now about Oxford? I cannot praise Oxford after having praised Cambridge; and my friendly connection with Cambridge makes it incumbent upon me to shower fire and brimstone upon haughty Oxford. ”

“ I bow down to you, O Cambridge, for upon me was conferred the honour of eating on the dais among the learned masters in a hall so vast and old that I felt as if I were only dreaming about it; I greet you with both hands, O Cambridge, for I was vouchsafed the joy of eating with students, masters and other young people from earthenware dishes in the Half Moon; and happy I was among them. And I have seen lawns where only the masters and not the undergraduates may walk, and staircases where only the graduates and not the students may play billiards ”

“ Unfortunately, I liked the latter place very much; the colleges, there are still bigger and still older, they have beautiful quiet parks, galleries of equally famous ancestors, banquet-halls, memorials and dignified janitors, but all this display and tradition is not aimless; it would seem that the purpose of it is to train not learned specialists, but gentlemen. ”