Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Stupidity often saves a man from going mad.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Stupid, Silly, Men

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1858). “The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table: Every Man His Own Boswell”, p.42

  15 Copy quote

• The best servant does his work unseen.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Unseen, Doe, Servant

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1872). “The Poet at the Breakfast-table: His Talks with His Fellow-boarders and the Reader”, p.171, Boston J.R. Osgood 1872.

  11 Copy quote

• To obtain a man's opinion of you, make him mad.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Crazy, Men, Mad

  11 Copy quote

• Trouble makes us one with every human being in the world - and unless we touch others, we're out of touch with life.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  World, Trouble, Humans

  7 Copy quote

• Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Friendship, Relationship, Courtesy

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Autocrat Of The Breakfast Table”, p.51, Reprint Services Corporation

  23 Copy quote

• It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Life, Faith, Insightful

  29 Copy quote

• The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great scholars great men.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Education, Men, Political

  1857-8 The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ch.6.

  19 Copy quote

• Memory is a net: one that finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook, but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Running, Memories, Water

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1875). “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-table: Every Man His Own Boswell”, p.325

  13 Copy quote

• 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 Sr.

  Love, Dream, Kissing

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Professor At The Breakfast Table”, p.269, Reprint Services Corporation

  32 Copy quote

• Leverage is everything-don't begin to pry until you've got the long arm on your side.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Your Side, Long, Advice

  7 Copy quote

• When men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe... that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas-- that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment. As all life is an experiment. Every year if not every day we wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Freedom, Believe, Fighting

  7 Copy quote

• I hate paying taxes. But I love the civilization they give me

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Hate, Civilization, Giving

  7 Copy quote

• 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 Sr.

  Love, Change, Dream

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1896). “Morse, John T.Life and letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes”

  67 Copy quote

• The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think what we like and say what we think.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Thinking, Freedom Of Speech, May

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Professor At The Breakfast Table”, p.118, Reprint Services Corporation

  15 Copy quote

• There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Morning, Old Friends, No Friends

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Poems 2”, p.146, Reprint Services Corporation

  31 Copy quote

• Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Age, Youth, Aging

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Poems 2”, p.205, Reprint Services Corporation

  9 Copy quote

• You may have genius. The contrary is, of course, probable.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Genius, May, Courses

  9 Copy quote

• Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Love, Insanity, Mind

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Autocrat Of The Breakfast Table”, p.42, Reprint Services Corporation

  13 Copy quote

• Love is the master-key that opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easily of all, the gate of fear.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Life, Love Is, Keys

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

  10 Copy quote

• Life as we call it, is nothing but the edge of the boundless ocean of existence when it comes upon soundings.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Life, Ocean, Existence

  6 Copy quote

• Don't be 'consistent,' but be simply true.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Consistent

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2005). “The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes: V5 & V6”, p.65

  14 Copy quote

• Even a dog knows the difference between being kicked and being stumbled over.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Dog, Differences, Knows

  6 Copy quote

• Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Running, Communication, Inspiration

  64 Copy quote

• And if I should live to be
  The last leaf upon the tree
  In the spring,
  Let them smile, as I do now,
  At the old forsaken bough
  Where I cling.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Spring, Tree, Age

  "The Last Leaf " l. 43 (1831)

  20 Copy quote

• What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the feeling that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only long enough for him to attempt to read a hundred?

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Book, Reading, Long

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Over the Teacups”, p.157, Reprint Services Corporation

  9 Copy quote

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