Oliver Wendell Holmes Quotes
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The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Vision
Old books, you know well, are books of the world's youth, and new books are the fruits of its age. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Books and Reading
The world has to learn that the actual pleasure derived from material things is of rather low quality on the whole and less even in quantity than it looks to those who have not tried it. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - World
Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Conceit
I firmly believe that if the whole material medical could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind, and all the worse for the sea. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Medicine
Age, like distance lends a double charm. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Age and Aging
To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Age and Aging
To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Doubt
Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprung up. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Ideas
A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Words
Several years before birth, advertise for a couple of parents belonging to long-lived families. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Advertising
What a comfort a dull but kindly person is, to be sure, at times! A ground-glass shade over a gas-lamp does not bring more solace to our dazzled eyes than such a one to our minds. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Dullness
Our dead brothers still live for us and bid us think of life, not death -- of life to which in their youth they lent the passion and glory of Spring. As I listen, the great chorus of life and joy begins again, and amid the awful orchestra of seen and unseen powers and destinies of good and evil, our trumpets, sound once more a note of daring, hope, and will. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Death and Dying
Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Youth
The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it will contract. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Prejudice
You commit a sin of omission if you do not utilize all the power that is within you. All men have claims on man, and to the man with special talents, this is a very special claim. It is required that a man take part in the actions and clashes of his time that the peril of being judged not to have lived at all. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Power
The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms. Very often it does not know what to do with genius. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Genius
Stillness and steadiness of features are signal marks of good breeding. Vulgar persons can't sit still, or at least must always work their limbs and features. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Ancestry
Simple people... are very quick to see the live facts which are going on about them. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Perception
The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Kisses and Kissing
Even for practical purposes theory generally turns out the most important thing in the end. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Theory
To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Action
Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Controversy
The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Books and Reading
Man's mind, stretched by a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Ideas
What I call a good patient is one who, having found a good physician, sticks to him till he dies. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Doctors
A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Insights
Young men know the rules, but old men know the exceptions. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Rules
Man is born a predestined idealist, for he is born to act. To act is to affirm the worth of an end, and to persist in affirming the worth of an end is to make an ideal. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Ideals and Idealism
Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them all. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Sin
Apology is only egotism wrong side out. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Excuses
The minute a phrase, becomes current, it becomes an apology for not thinking accurately to the end of the sentence. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Thoughts and Thinking
Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Truth
If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it around. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't embrace trouble; that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say: meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it, and had better be on speaking terms with it. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Trouble
Even the wisest woman you talk to is ignorant of something you may know, but an elegant woman never forgets her elegance. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Elegance
How many people live on the reputation of the reputation they might have made! ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Reputation
People talk fundamentals and superlatives and then make some changes of detail. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Opinions
Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - History and Historians
Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Insanity
Fresh air is good if you do not take too much of it; most of the achievements and pleasures of life are in bad air. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Pollution
Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if it has common sense on the ground floor. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Common Sense
Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Speech
Our brains our seventy year clocks, the angel of life winds them up once and for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the hands of the angel of resurrection. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Mind
Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Trust
The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may thing what we like and say what we think. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Freedom of Speech
Love prefers twilight to daylight. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Retirement
God's plan made a hopeful beginning. But man spoiled his chances by sinning. We trust that the story will end in God's glory. But, at present, the other side's winning. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Sin
A goose flies by a chart which the Royal Geographical Society could not mend. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Instinct
Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays the pleasing game of interchanging praise. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Praise
Unpretending mediocrity is good, and genius is glorious; but a weak flavor of genius in an essentially common person is detestable. It spoils the grand neutrality of a commonplace character, as the rinsings of an unwashed wine-glass spoil a draught of fair water. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Genius
The greatest tragedy in America is not the destruction of our natural resources, though that tragedy is great. The truly great tragedy is the destruction of our human resources by our failure to fully utilize our abilities, which means that most men and women go to their graves with their music still in them. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Tragedies
It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Wisdom
Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Friends and Friendship
Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Critics and Criticism
The man who is always worrying whether or not his soul would be damned generally has a soul that isn't worth a damn. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Soul
Pretty much all the honest truth telling there is in the world is done by children. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Children
A new untruth is better than an old truth. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Truth
A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Achievement
Speak not too well of one who scarce will know himself transfigured in its roseate glow; Say kindly of him what is, chiefly, true, remembering always he belongs to you; Deal with him as a truant, if you will, But claim him, keep him, call him brother still! ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Brotherhood
Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Love
Don't you stay at home of evenings? Don you love a cushioned seat in a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your feet? ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Retirement
The freeman, casting with unpurchased hand the vote that shakes the turrets of the land. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Democracy
A page of history is worth a pound of logic. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - History and Historians
Nothing is so commonplace has the wish to be remarkable. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Commonplace
All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called ''facts.'' They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain. Who does not know fellows that always have an ill-conditioned fact or two that they lead after them into decent company like so many bull-dogs, ready to let them slip at every ingenious suggestion, or convenient generalization, or pleasant fancy? I allow no ''facts'' at this table. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Facts
I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Action
Society is always trying in some way to grind us down to a single flat surface. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Society
A good soldier, like a good horse, cannot be of a bad color. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Soldier
Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at the touch, nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Truth
Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Memory
People who make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children, but their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake of a battered witticism. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Puns
A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Originality
Little-minded people's thoughts move in such small circles that five minutes conversation gives you an arc long enough to determine their whole curve. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Thoughts and Thinking
Grow we must, if we outgrow all that loves us. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Change
Every event that a man would master must be mounted on the run, and no man ever caught the reins of a thought except as it galloped past him. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Thoughts and Thinking
The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Advice
Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Fame
And Silence, like a poultice, comes to heal the blows of sound. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Silence
A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Ideas
Every man is an omnibus in which his ancestors ride. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Ancestry
A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Jokes and Jokers
A person is always startled when he hears himself called old for the first time. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Age and Aging
Love is the master key which opens the gates of happiness. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Love
People who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be ''consistent.'' ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Contradiction
In walking, the will and the muscles are so accustomed to working together and performing their task with so little expenditure of force that the intellect is left comparatively free. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Cooperation
Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide --that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life --are alike forbidden. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Language
The greatest act of faith is when a man understands he is not God. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Faith
Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Revolutions and Revolutionaries
I should like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a gorilla that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Marriage
A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command the latter. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Ideas
Knowledge like timber shouldn't be mush use till they are seasoned. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Knowledge
The mode in which the inevitable comes to pass is through effort. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Achievement
It is very lonely sometimes, trying to play God. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Loneliness
Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water-bath is to the body. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Music
Beauty is the index of a larger fact than wisdom. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Beauty
The Amen of nature is always a flower. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Flowers
Every calling is great when greatly pursued. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Work
Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Language
People can be divided into two classes: those who go ahead and do something, and those who sit still and inquire, why wasn't it done the other way? ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Humankind
The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great scholars great men. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Studying
The most foolish kind of a book is a kind of leaky boat on the sea of wisdom; some of the wisdom will get in anyhow. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Books and Reading
I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Life and Living
It is faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth looking at. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Life and Living
Stupidity often saves a man from going mad. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Stupidity
It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes life worth living. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Faith
To live is to function. That is all there is in living. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Life and Living
Good Americans when they die, go to Paris. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - America
Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Secrets
A great calamity is as old as the trilobites an hour after it has happened. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Disasters
Rough work, iconoclasm, but the only way to get at truth. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Truth
Man has will, but woman has her way. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Will and Will Power
A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Children
The older author is constantly rediscovering himself in the more or less fossilized productions of his earlier years. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Writers and Writing
Do not be bullied out of your common sense by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Experts
A few can touch the magic string, and noisy fame is proud to win them: Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them! ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Death and Dying
This is a court of law young man, not a court of justice. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Law and Lawyers
As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time, at the peril of being not to have lived. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Ability
And when you stick on conversation's burrs, don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Conversation
Why can't somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes - Conventionality
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