Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Quotes

Quotes about:

• Have the courage to act instead of react.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Courage, Veterans Day, Fear

  40 Copy quote

• It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Life, Positive, Wisdom

  'The Poet at the Breakfast Table' (1872) ch. 10

  74 Copy quote

• 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 Sr.

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  82 Copy quote

• Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Happy Friday, People, Disrespectful

  40 Copy quote

• Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Inspirational, Life, Death

  57 Copy quote

• To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Birthday, Time, Years

  Letter to Julia Ward Howe on her 70th birthday, 27 May (1889)

  52 Copy quote

• Most people are willing to take the Sermon on the Mount as a flag to sail under, but few will use it as a rudder by which to steer.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Inspirational, Funny, Spiritual

  46 Copy quote

• Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Fall, Communication, Words You Speak

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Poems 1”, p.125, Reprint Services Corporation

  28 Copy quote

• Man has his will, but woman has her way.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Love, Funny, Life

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Poems 1”, p.405, Reprint Services Corporation

  57 Copy quote

• Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Love, Marriage, Missing You

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “The Poet at the Breakfast Table”, p.33, Reprint Services Corporation

  253 Copy quote

• Beware how you take away hope from any human being.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Life, Hope, Expectations

  Valedictory address to medical graduates at Harvard University on March 10, 1858. The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Volume LVIII, No. 8, p. 158, March 25, 1858.

  49 Copy quote

• Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way - and the fools know it.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Wise, Men, Way

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Autocrat Of The Breakfast Table”, p.114, Reprint Services Corporation

  18 Copy quote

• Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Truth, Light

  36 Copy quote

• Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “A Mortal Antipathy”, p.246, Reprint Services Corporation

  90 Copy quote

• Youth fades, love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Mothers Day, Mom, Hope

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Professor At The Breakfast Table”, p.129, Reprint Services Corporation

  89 Copy quote

• A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Inspirational, Business, Wisdom Experience

  1857-8 The Professor at the Breakfast Table, ch.10.

  32 Copy quote

• The mind of a bigot to the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it contracts.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Inspirational, Eye, Science

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Autocrat Of The Breakfast Table”, p.144, Reprint Services Corporation

  14 Copy quote

• Death tugs at my ear and says, 'Live. I am coming.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Running, Ears

  21 Copy quote

• We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them...

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Fear, Men, Imagination

  "The Poet at the Breakfast Table". Book by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., 1872.

  33 Copy quote

• 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 Sr.

  Writing, Science, Thinking

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1867). “The Professor at the Breakfast-table: With the Story of Iris”, p.192

  31 Copy quote

• Learn the sweet magic of a cheerful face.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Sweet, Magic, Cheerful

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Poems 1”, p.146, Reprint Services Corporation

  36 Copy quote

• Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Football, Truth, Lying

  1857-8 The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ch.5.

  16 Copy quote

• A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Inspiration, Men, Age

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1875). “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-table: Every Man His Own Boswell”, p.178

  13 Copy quote

• Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Beauty, Past, Beautiful Women

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Professor At The Breakfast Table”, p.31, Reprint Services Corporation

  18 Copy quote

• Do not be bullied out of your common sense by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Bullying, Two, Common Sense

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Over the Teacups”, p.148, Reprint Services Corporation

  9 Copy quote

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