Speaking at the Oxford Union, December 2, 1920; quoted in Beverley Nichols 25: Being a Young Man's Candid Recollections of his Elders and Betters (London, 1926), ch. 7, p. 69.
Sometimes said to have been the first usage of this now ubiquitous cliché, though in fact the phrase university of life had been in use for many years. Some early instances:
"The disciplined minds that go from [their university's] walls will be its jewels…It will worthily introduce them to the University of Life." ~ The New Englander and Yale Review (February 1853), p. 70.
"The late Professor Greenleaf…who, not born to affluence, and not bred up to scholarly studies, achieved an honorable scholarship in the university of life". ~ Cornelius Conway Felton An Address Delivered before the Association of the Alumni of Harvard College, July 20, 1854 (Cambridge, Mass., 1854), p. 7.
"But God be thanked…for the university of life where we may acquire, at the same time that we put in practice, the rules which are to fit us for, and conduct us through the eternities." Elizabeth D. Livermore Zoë (Cincinnati, 1855), p. 14.
"When our men go into the great university of life…there are few, indeed, who have practical reason to regret that so many years were spent in the severe but salutary discipline imposed by the University of Dublin." ~ The Dublin University Magazine (April 1858), p. 419.
“Let him remember that many before now have tried to chastise a wrongdoer, and failing to punish their enemy have not even saved themselves; while many who have trusted in force to gain an advantage, instead of gaining anything more, have been doomed to lose what they had. Vengeance is not necessarily successful because wrong has been done, or strength sure because it is confident; but the incalculable element in the future exercises the widest influence, and is the most treacherous, and yet in fact the most useful of all things, as it frightens us all equally, and thus makes us consider before attacking each other.”
Book IV, 4.62-[3]-[4]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book IV
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Thucydides 76
Greek historian and Athenian generalRelated quotes

De Superstitione (On Superstition)
Source: Apostle Paul: A Polite Bribe https://books.google.com.br/books?id=wefkDwAAQBAJ&pg=108 by Robert Orlando; p. 108
“We have to serve ourselves for many years before we gain our own confidence.”
Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 104

Believe in Me.
Song lyrics, Windows and Walls (1984)

Homily on Romans IV http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/210204.htm

Albury Conference, 1944
Wilderness Years (1941-1949)
Source: http://www.australianquotes.com/quotes_1950-present.php
Source: Your Forces and How to Use Them (1912), Chapter 3, p. 50

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 12, “The Plain of Fear” (p. 506)