Quotable quotes

Thought-provoking snippets from the OED quotation files...

An exacting study...
1988 P. Gay Freud, His search for the gonads of the eel helped to school Freud in patient and precise observation.

...a procedure everyone knows...
1946 Nature, The mobilization of lipochrome..in the serum of strogenized or actively laying fowl must..be familiar to all who have prepared phospholipid extracts from the sera of such birds.

...and some medieval dope?
1304 in N. S. B. Gras Early Eng. Customs Syst., Pro i pakett' canabi.