The Arms of the University of Oxford show an open book with the inscription 'Dominus illuminatio mea' (The Lord is my light), surrounded by three golden crowns.
A blazon of this would be:
Azure, upon a book open proper, leathered gules, garnished or, having on the dexter side seven seals of the last, the words DOMINVS ILLVMINATIO MEA; all between three open crowns, two and one, or.
The arms have been in existence since around 1400, varying in appearance over the centuries. The number of seals and the text, for example, have both varied. The modern version of the arms in which they are not borne on a shield, but rather surrounded by a garter bearing the text 'UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD' was designed in 1993 and is a registered trademark.
Famous quotes containing the words arms, university and/or oxford:
“A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
—Second Amendment, U.S. Constitution (1791)
“The great problem of American life [is] the riddle of authority: the difficulty of finding a way, within a liberal and individualistic social order, of living in harmonious and consecrated submission to something larger than oneself.... A yearning for self-transcendence and submission to authority [is] as deeply rooted as the lure of individual liberation.”
—Wilfred M. McClay, educator, author. The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America, p. 4, University of North Carolina Press (1994)
“The logical English train a scholar as they train an engineer. Oxford is Greek factory, as Wilton mills weave carpet, and Sheffield grinds steel. They know the use of a tutor, as they know the use of a horse; and they draw the greatest amount of benefit from both. The reading men are kept by hard walking, hard riding, and measured eating and drinking, at the top of their condition, and two days before the examination, do not work but lounge, ride, or run, to be fresh on the college doomsday.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)