University Of Edinburgh Alumni

"Yes! I could find some comfort in the thought Of being scourged, Were there but hope that this defiling sin Which mars my life, and taints my heart within Could so be purged, And I might live, in virtue of the rod, The life in God."

"O to be like my Lord! Yet must I be Mine own self too, And to the nature He bestowed on me Be frankly true.The olive fruits not as the clustering vine; Nor may we get Scent of the rose or lily from woodbine, Or violet."

"I remember more the atmosphere than specific memories — being in the garden and hanging out with both my parents while they were doing things, walking through, smelling the flowers. I was very keen on s from a young age – that very much formed the basis of my love of gardening. Wild collecting dictated what we had in the gardens. On holidays in the Mediterranean, my parents collected plants such as and s – we had them long before they were fashionable. s, too."

"Let’s start in the garden. This year cookery writers are as happy digging and planting as slicing and braising. Sarah Raven is a great gardener and, on the evidence of her latest book, Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook (, £35), she’s a good cook too. This is a book for a lifetime of cooking: there are more than 400 recipes based on fruit and vegetables. It is not vegetarian — she uses fish and meat too — but vegetables and fruit are to the fore. Raven’s recipes are simple, practical and enticing, and there isn’t one I don’t want to cook. The book is divided into two-month chunks and full of suggestions (snip off pea tendrils for salads, or leave a few beetroot in the ground to produce an early spring salad leaf) and tips on the most tasty varieties to grow. Her ten recipes will sort out an impending green avalanche, and she has five good marrow recipes for when the wretched plants have triumphed."

"We moved to Perch Hill in 1994 from London and found a rather ramshackle ex- with a lot of concrete, corrugated iron and a small garden with a on the south side of the house. Since then, we converted the farm into an organic 90 acres, putting in new hedges on old lines, trying to encourage wildflowers into the meadows and introducing our own herd of and a flock or Romney-cross sheep."

"I'm on a mission to get more of us to grow British wild flowers in our gardens. As ever-increasing numbers of these plants vanish from the countryside, our own private spaces become more important – and genuinely useful. Between us, our gardens cover more than a million acres, which far exceeds the total area of all our nature reserves. We need to think of our gardens as little reservoirs in which British biodiversity can survive. In time, it will spread out from there, but if we make our gardens wild flower hot spots, then at least we know things aren't disappearing at quite such a rate. There's plenty of evidence from the work of etymologists such as Dr (see her brilliant book Wildlife Of A Garden: A Thirty-Year Study) that gardens can provide rich s, with flowers the key part of that ."

"'Madame Alfred Carrière' This was the first rose planted by Vita at in 1930, before the deeds were even signed, and it quickly covered most of the south face of the South Cottage and in Vita and Harold's day was left to 'render invisible' most of the front of the house and trained around her bedroom window to pour scent into the house for months at a stretch. It is still there, and now has a huge trunk wider than my husband's thigh."

"I am passionate about chemistry and really keen to ensure that opportunities are available to young people from all different backgrounds to become chemists. We need diversity of opinions, different perspectives and the best talent to take the discipline forward into the future."

"My mentors have been incredibly important to me. I trusted them to give me the best advice, whether I had asked for it or not, and they also gave me confidence to take up opportunities I might otherwise have declined. It’s really important that we take the time to do the same for the next generation of chemists."

"O grant me, Heaven, a middle state, Neither too humble nor too great; More than enough, for nature's ends, With something left to treat my friends."

"The human race are sons of sorrow born; And each must have his portion. Vulgar minds Refuse or cranch beneath their load: the brave Bear theirs without repining."

"But when Science, passing beyond its own limits, assumes to take the place of Theology, and sets up its own conception of the Order of Nature as a sufficient account of its Cause, it is invading a province of Thought to which it has no claim, and not unreasonably provokes the hostility of those who ought to be its best friends."

"Who has not known ill fortune, never knew Himself, or his own virtue."

"Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue: Where patience, honour, sweet humanity, Calm fortitude, take root, and strongly flourish."

"Blogg sneers at ancient birth;—yes, Blogg, we see, Your ears are longer than your pedigree."

"Pompous the boast, and yet a truth it speaks: A Modern Athens—fit for modern Greeks."

"Through regions by wild men and cannibals haunted, Old Dame Ida Pfeiffer goes lone and undaunted; But, bless you, the risk's not so great as it's reckon'd, She's too plain for the first, and too tough for the second."

"Tomkins will clear the land, they say, From every foul abuse: So chimneys in the olden day, Were cleansed by a goose."

"Provisional age data now show that between 2000 and 3000 BCE, flow along a presently dried-up course known as the Ghaggur-Hakkra River ceased, probably driven by the weakening monsoon and possibly also because of headwater capture into the adjacent Yamuna and Sutlej Rivers."

"Imperfect as is the , how infinitely more imperfect must necessarily be our knowledge of that record! The largest s, , and other excavations made by man, are in themselves relatively insignificant scratches on the surface of the vast mass of fossil-bearing rocks, but yet how small a fraction of the material obtained in such excavations ever passes under the detailed scrutiny of the palaeontologist."

"The general lecture course in is accompanied by laboratory work extending over a hundred hours. In great part this follows the usual lines such as are laid down in and Hurst’s Text-book, but a special feature is made of the study of a valuable series of demonstration specimens. This includes the study, under high-power s, of such organisms as s, , s, and s. Experience has shown that students fully appreciate the privilege of being able to examine such preparations for themselves, and that they take the greatest care not to do damage. Opportunities are also given for seeing Trypanosomes, , e and so on, in the living condition. This demonstration part of the course is regarded as being of special value in arousing and gripping the interest of the student."

"He once jokingly referred to the report, published in , of his award of the in 1955 as "a very pleasant obituary notice"."

"The majority of fishes produce s in enormous numbers, amounting in some cases to several millions, and correlated with this the size of the individual egg has become much reduced. The average diameter of a ean egg may be taken as about 1 . In an egg of this size segmentation of so markedly meroblastic a character would be puzzling except on the hypothesis that the meroblastic condition had arisen in ancestral forms in which the eggs were much larger."

"Pure, just, benign; thus filial love would trace The virtues hallowing this narrow space; The Emerald Isle may grant a wider claim, And link the Patriot with his country's name."

"Hapless nation, hapless land, Heap of uncementing sand! Crumbled by a foreign weight, Or by worse, domestic hate!"

"When Erin first rose from the dark-swelling flood, God blessed the green island, he saw it was good. The Emerald of Europe, it sparkled and shone In the ring of this world, the most precious stone."

"Arm of Erin, prove strong, but be gentle as brave, And, uplifted to strike, still be ready to save; Nor one feeling of vengeance presume to defile The cause or the men of the Emerald Isle."

"Men of Erin! awake, and make haste to be blest! Rise! arch of the ocean, and queen of the West!"

"Contemporary economic white nationalism is the dynamic form of hatred of what is different for its own sake."

"Race-based negative integration has been a continuous element of the American social bond for large sectors of the citizenry since the founding, but almost always qualified and repudiated with the reminder that “we” are a nation of immigrants. The join between these two features of the American social bond are arguably the foundational contradiction in the idea of America."

"It is a very comfortable faith to hold that "whatever is, is best," not only in the dispensations of Providence, but in the social order of daily life; but it is a faith which is perhaps best preserved by careful avoidance of too much inquiry into facts."

"It is clear that in Great Britain at an early period women were commonly found among the irregular practitioners of Medicine; and it is equally clear that their male competitors greatly desired to deprive them of the right to practise."

"... Whatever shortcomings or errors may be recorded against , it should ever be remembered in her favour that she took the initiative before all the world in opening a college career to women, and in welcoming, on equal terms, all students, of whatever race or hue. This double glory shall surely be hers in the memories of men when much on which she now prides herself more may be forgotten."

"The study and practice of medicine seems to me to be divided into two tolerably distinct branches,—Preventive and Curative; and whereas the second of these will, I think, be left by all wise people to those who, by years of study of books and , have mastered some at least of its difficulties, the former should, in my opinion, form an integral part of every system of education which has any pretension to completeness."

"... On Sunday morning the College-chapel is used by the whole community of , and the students may attend there or elsewhere as they please; but in the afternoon the service is specially designed for them, and their presence is required."

"... If we go back to primeval times, and try to imagine the first sickness or the first injury suffered by humanity, does one instinctively feel that it must have been the man's business to seek means of healing, to try the virtues of various herbs, or to apply such rude remedies as might occur to one unused to the strange spectacle of human suffering? I think that few would maintain that such ministration would come most naturally to the man and be instinctively avoided by the woman; indeed, I fancy that the presumption would be rather in the other direction. And what is such ministration but the germ of the future profession of medicine?"

"The third College which gives instruction and academic degrees to both sexes is situated at , in Ohio, and being founded in 1852 by a sect calling themselves emphatically "Christians," was by the named , in allusion to Acts xi. 26. The characteristic feature distinguishing this College from the others already named, is the aim of its founders to establish it on a strictly unsectarian basis."

"Ye watchful sprites, who make e'en man your care, And sure more gladly hover o'er the fair, Who grave on adamant all changeless things, The smiles of courtiers and the frowns of kings! Say to what softer texture ye impart The quick resolves of woman's trusting heart; Joys of a moment, wishes of an hour, The short eternity of Passion's power, Breathed in vain oaths that pledge with generous zeal E'en more of fondness than they e'er shall feel, Light fleeting vows, that never reach above, And all the guileless changefulness of love! Is summer's leaf the record? Does it last Till withering autumn blot it with his blast? Or, frailer still, to fade ere ocean's ebb,— Graved on some filmy insect's thinnest web, Some day-fly's wing that dies and ne'er has slept: Lives the light vow scarce longer than 'tis kept? Ah, call not perfidy her fickle choice! Ah, find not falsehood in an angel's voice! True to one word, and constant to one aim, Let man's hard soul be stubborn as his frame; But leave sweet woman's form and mind at will To bend and vary and be graceful still."

"In Vishnu’s lotus-foot alone Confide! His power shall ne’er decay, When tumbles every earthly throne, And mortal glory fades away."

"Alas! that Scottish maid should sing The combat where her lover fell! That Scottish Bard should wake the string, The triumph of our foes to tell!"

"[T]he Physics delivered in the following Work... was both known and diligently cultivated by the most ancient Philosophers. ...[T]he true System of the World, approv'd of Pythagoras, and others among the Ancients..."

"[T]hose persons seem to apply their thoughts but to a very indifferent purpose in the study of Nature, that overlook this part of Astronomy, from whence the principal and most simple Laws of Nature are to be learn'd."

"[W]e do still tread in the steps of the Ancients in this Physical Astronomy; inasmuch as they knew that the Celestial Bodies gravitated towards each other, and were retain'd in their Orbits by the force of Gravity; and were also apprized of the Law of this Gravity."

"For the Sun and Planets are separated from one another by so immense a distance, as renders them incapable of exerting most of those forces whereby all Bodies act upon one another; so that they have no other force left them whereby they can affect one another, but the single force of universal Gravity: Whereas in the production of several Phænomena, that are observ'd upon our Earth, innumerable other forces are exerted, such as are very hard to be distinguish'd from one another; which notwithstanding, if not accurately done, in vain do we attempt Nature, and make any inquiry into it."

"The Celestial Physics, or Physical Astronomy, is not only the first in dignity of all inquiries into Nature... but the first in order, because it is the easiest."

"Upon this account it is, that every Problem in the Terrestrial Physics is very operose and perplex'd, on the contrary, in the Celestial Physics, much more easy and simple; tho' even the latter has its difficulties, arising from the different distances and magnitudes of the Celestial Bodies, For the Fix'd Stars are so vastly distant asunder, that they have no mutual action upon each other, observable by us..."

"[I]f we look back to the first Rise of Astronomy... we shall find nothing better approv'd of, nothing more universally entertained among the several Sects of Philosophers, than this notion of the Gravity of the Celestial Bodies."

"My design in publishing this Book, was, that the Celestial Physics, which the most sagacious Kepler had got the scent of, but the Prince of Geometers Sir Isaac Newton, brought to such a pitch as surprises all the World, might, by my... illustrating, become easier to such as are desirous of being acquainted with Philosophy and Astronomy."

"[F]or the further improvement of natural philosophy a more advanced geometry must be found. ...[T]he reason why physical science has here been brought to a level that is the envy of foreigners is the knowledge... of some more universal geometry. Of what part of this the learned owe to this renowned university and in it to the prince of geometers I shall not speak lest I appear to be fawning, which in a mathematician would be unseemly."

"[T]he Physics, it is all taken out of the above mention'd Authors; but is here intermix'd with Astronomy, in such places as seem'd proper and convenient; the Geometry to be met with in it, I have either borrowed elsewhere, and quoted... or delivered it Lemmatrically."