Eton Quotes:

An unemployed electrician,whom I had been taunting with my reminder of how much richer I was, leaned forward and said:'What are your qualifications? I know exactly what your qualifications are.You bent over in the shower to pick up some soap at Eton and Harrow, like all the rest of them.

- Auberon Waugh

source: Auberon Waugh (1986). “Another Voice: An Alternative Anatomy of Britain”

topic: Eton, Soap, Bent, Electrician

I'd like thousands of schools as good as the one I went to, Eton.

- Boris Johnson

topic: School, Eton

The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.

- Duke of Wellington

topic: Battle, Fields, Eton, Waterloo

Most Englishmen are convinced that God is an Englishman, probably educated at Eton.

- E. M. Delafield

topic: Eton, Language, Educated

As far as the physical miseries go, I am sure I will cope. I lived at Eton in the 1950s and I know all about life in uncomfortable quarters.

- Jonathan Aitken

source: "A Right Honorable Briton? Hardly, It Turns Out" by Warren Hoge, www.nytimes.com. February 04, 1999.

topic: Eton, Misery, Quarters

My education [takes place] during the holidays from Eton.

- Osbert Sitwell

topic: Holiday, Eton

Free milk will be provided in Hoxton and Shoredith, in Eton and Harrow. What more social equality can you have than that?

- Ellen Wilkinson

topic: Eton, Milk, Social, Social Equality

Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.

- George Orwell

source: The Lion and the Unicorn pt. 1, sec. 4 (1941) SeeWellington 7

topic: War, Battle, Eton, Waterloo, Playing Fields

Were I to deduce any system from my feelings on leaving Eton, it might be called The Theory of Permanent Adolescence. It is the theory that the experiences undergone by boys at the great public schools, their glories and disappointments, are so intense as to dominate their lives and to arrest their development. From these it results that the greater part of the ruling class remains adolescent, school-minded, self-conscious, cowardly, sentimental, and in the last analysis homosexual.

- Cyril Connolly

source: Cyril Connolly (1960). “Enemies of promise and other essays: an autobiography of ideas”

topic: Education, Disappointment, School, Eton, Self Conscious

There is an old story about the boy at Eton who committed suicide. The other boys in his house were gathered together and asked if any of them could suggest a reason for the tragedy. After a long silence a small boy in the front put up his hand: 'Could it have been the food, sir?

- Auberon Waugh

topic: Suicide, Boys, Hands, Long Silence, Eton

I had two experiences of criminality: one was my conman father, the other was teaching at Eton

- John le Carre

topic: Father, Teaching, Two, Eton

Where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.

- Thomas Gray

source: "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" l. 99 (1747)

topic: Inspirational, Wise, Ignorance, Ignorance Is Bliss, Eton

When historians get to write the truth about this completely unnecessary referendum [Brexit] they won't say it was a vote demanded by the British people to decide their national destiny. They will say it was the final battle in a decades-long Tory Civil War, at the heart of which was a fight to the death between two Old Etonians, David Cameron and Boris Johnson, for the hollow crown. A sort of Eton Wall Game. Where the poorest are put up against the wall and shot.

- Brian Reade

topic: Wall, War, Writing, Referendums, Eton

I am inclined to agree with the Head Master of Eton that pæderastic passions among schoolboys 'do no harm'; further, I think them the only redeeming feature of sexual life at public schools.

- Aleister Crowley

source: "Energized Enthusiasm: A Note On Theurgy". The Equinox, Volume 1, No. 9, www.the-equinox.org. Spring 1913.

topic: Passion, School, Thinking, Eton

No sovereign, no court, no personal loyalty, no aristocracy, no church, no clergy, no army, no diplomatic service, no country gentlemen, no palaces, no castles, nor manors, nor old country-houses, nor parsonages, nor thatched cottages nor ivied ruins no cathedrals, nor abbeys, nor little Norman churches no great Universities nor public schools -- no Oxford, nor Eton, nor Harrow no literature, no novels, no museums, no pictures, no political society, no sporting class -- no Epsom nor Ascot Some such list as that might be drawn up of the absent things in American life.

- Henry James

topic: Loyalty, Country, School, Abbey, Eton

It's the weird thing Eton does - you're at school next to lords and earls and, in my case, Prince William, so you end up being used to dealing with those sorts of people.

- Eddie Redmayne

topic: School, People, Doe, Eton

It is essential to rear a generation at the very top of society that has all the qualities needed to lead and give the people the inspiration and the drive to make it succeed. In short, the elite.. Every society tries to produce this type. The British have special schools for them: the gifted and talented are sent to Eton and Harrow.

- Lee Kuan Yew

topic: Inspiration, School, People, Eton

It is contended that those who have been bred at Eton, Harrow, Rugby, and Westminster, that the public sentiment within each of those schools is high-toned and manly; that, in their playgrounds, courage is universally admired, meanness despised, manly feelings and generous conduct are encouraged: that an unwritten code of honor deals to the spoiled child of rank, and to the child of upstart wealth an even-handed justice, purges their nonsense out of both, and does all that can be done to make them gentlemen.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.567, Modern Library

topic: Education, Children, School, Spoiled Children, Westminster

Britain won its wars on the playing fields of Eton. America developed its mettle at the muddy gaps of the Cumberlands, in the swift rapids of its rivers, on the limitless reaches of its western plains, in the silent vastness of primeval forests, and in the blizzard-ridden passes of the Rockies and Coast ranges.

- Harvey Broome

topic: War, Rivers, America, Mettle, Eton

I went to prep school, Eton and Oxford. When people hear that, they think they know you, and you think: No, you dont.

- Harry Lloyd

source: "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: School, Thinking, Oxford, Eton

My brother said that at Eton, students were told caning builds character. I suppose girls are caned less because we aren't thought to have much character." "Which is the sort of thing males say when they don't know any women.

- Mary Jo Putney

topic: Girl, Brother, Character, Eton

I taught principally German language and literature at Eton. But any master with private pupils must be prepared to teach anything they ask for. That can be as diverse as the early paintings of Salvador Dali or how bumblebees manage to fly.

- John le Carre

topic: German Language, Bumblebees, Literature, Eton

My habit of attacking Huns dangling from their parachutes led to many arguments in the mess. Some officers, of the Eton and Sandhurst type, thought it was 'unsportsmanlike' to do it. Never having been to a public school, I was unhampered by such considerations of form. I just pointed out that there was a bloody war on, and that I intended to avenge my pals.

- James Ira Thomas Jones

topic: War, School, Pals, Eton