Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• The man who is always worrying about whether or not his soul would be damned generally has a soul that isn't worth a damn.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Men, Umpires, Worry

  13 Copy quote

• But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Friendship, Sweet, Real Friends

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Poems 2”, p.147, Reprint Services Corporation

  19 Copy quote

• 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 Sr.

  Music, Death, Winning

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1859). “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-table ...”, p.355

  7 Copy quote

• Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays the pleasing game of interchanging praise.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Friendship, Best Friend, Sweet

  'An After-Dinner Poem'

  8 Copy quote

• 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 Sr.

  Inspirational, Life, Success

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ronald K. L. Collins (2010). “The Fundamental Holmes: A Free Speech Chronicle and Reader - Selections from the Opinions, Books, Articles, Speeches, Letters and Other Writings by and about Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.”, p.21, Cambridge University Press

  14 Copy quote

• 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 Sr.

  Air, Achievement, Too Much

  10 Copy quote

• For nothing burns with such amazing speed, As the dry sticks of a religious creed.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Religious, Dry, Sticks

  6 Copy quote

• People who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be 'consistent'.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Mean, People, Trying

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Professor At The Breakfast Table”, p.33, Reprint Services Corporation

  8 Copy quote

• No families take so little medicine as those of doctors, except those of apothecaries.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Lying, Doctors, Medicine

  Medical Essays 'Current and Counter-Currents in Medical Science'

  15 Copy quote

• A goose flies by a chart which the Royal Geographical Society could not mend.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Nature, Royal, Instinct

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Professor At The Breakfast Table”, p.240, Reprint Services Corporation

  11 Copy quote

• A woman never forgets her sex. She would rather talk with a man than an angel, any day.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Sex, Angel, Men

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “The Poet at the Breakfast Table”, p.91, Reprint Services Corporation

  9 Copy quote

• Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Hurt, Men, Mad

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. “The Selected Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.”, Library of Alexandria

  7 Copy quote

• The Indian is but a sketch in red crayon of a rudimental manhood. To the problem of his relation to the white race, there is one solution: extermination.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Race, White, Politics

  4 Copy quote

• What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left!

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Blessed, Writing, Criticism

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Professor At The Breakfast Table”, p.25, Reprint Services Corporation

  8 Copy quote

• America is the only place where man is full-grown!

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Military, Men, America

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1860). “The Professor at the Breakfast-table: With The Story of Iris”, p.101

  4 Copy quote

• Simple people... are very quick to see the live facts which are going on about them.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Simple, People, Perception

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1868). “The Guardian Angel”, p.321

  7 Copy quote

• 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 Sr.

  Running, Men, Thinking

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1911). “From Day to Day with Holmes”

  8 Copy quote

• See how he throws his baited lines about,/And plays his men as anglers play their trout.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Men, Play, Political

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1862). “The Poems of Oliver Wendell Holmes”, p.248

  5 Copy quote

• Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the hand of the Angel of the Resurrection.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Birthday, Angel, Wind

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1873). “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-table: Every Man His Own Boswell”, p.214

  9 Copy quote

• What we most want to ask of our Maker is an unfolding of the divine purpose in putting human beings into conditions in which such numbers of them would be sure to go wrong.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Numbers, Evil, Would Be

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Over the Teacups”, p.256, Reprint Services Corporation

  4 Copy quote

• Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Life, Art, Past

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Autocrat Of The Breakfast Table”, p.98, Reprint Services Corporation

  4 Copy quote

• The sea drowns out humanity and time. It has no sympathy with either, for it belongs to eternity; and of that it sings its monotonous song forever and ever.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Song, Sea, Forever

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1873). “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-table: Every Man His Own Boswell”, p.309

  6 Copy quote

• Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else - very rarely to those who say to themselves, 'Go to, now, let us be a celebrated individual!'.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Thinking, Fame, Individual

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1873). “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-table: Every Man His Own Boswell”, p.335

  8 Copy quote

• The year is getting to feel rich, for his golden fruits are ripening fast, and he has a large balance in the barns, which are his banks. The members of his family have found out that he is well to do in the world. September is dressing herself in show of dahlias and splendid marigolds and starry zinnias. October, the extravagant sister, has ordered an immense amount of the most gorgeous forest tapestry for her grand reception.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Years, Balance, Golden

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Pages From An Old Volume Of Life”, p.162, Reprint Services Corporation

  23 Copy quote

• Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse. One comfort we have - Cincinnati sounds worse.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Cities, Sound, Chicago

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Poems 2”, p.236, Reprint Services Corporation

  11 Copy quote

Page 4 of 5

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin