Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Quotes - Page 3

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• 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

• 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

• 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

• Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Trust, Money, Investing

  1857-8 The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ch.2.

  18 Copy quote

• When I think of talking, it is of course with a woman. For talking at its best being an inspiration, it wants a corresponding divine quality of receptiveness, and where will you find this but in a woman?

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Women, Inspiration, Thinking

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “The Poet at the Breakfast Table”, p.90, Reprint Services Corporation

  6 Copy quote

• The books we read should be chosen with great care, that they may be, as an Egyptian king wrote over his library,'The medicines of the soul.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Kings, Book, Reading

  20 Copy quote

• Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of the place it came from, and whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and color of its birthplace.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Heart, Color, Brain

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1860). “The Professor at the Breakfast-table: With The Story of Iris”, p.185

  28 Copy quote

• I like children; I like 'em, and I respect 'em. Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by them.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Children, Ems, Done

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “The Poet at the Breakfast Table”, p.50, Reprint Services Corporation

  12 Copy quote

• Apology is only egotism wrong side out.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Apology, Two Sides, Ego

  1858-9 The Professor at the Breakfast Table, ch.6.

  11 Copy quote

• The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Morning, Cheer, Coffee

  1891 Over the Teacups, ch.1.

  29 Copy quote

• Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that - one stitch at a time taken patiently and the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Time, Quilts, Children

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Guardian Angel”, p.179, Reprint Services Corporation

  41 Copy quote

• The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men - from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Family, Mothers Day, Mom

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Professor At The Breakfast Table”, p.124, Reprint Services Corporation

  10 Copy quote

• Love prefers twilight to daylight.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Twilight, Daylight

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Professor At The Breakfast Table”, p.101, Reprint Services Corporation

  9 Copy quote

• Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Friendship, Real Friends, Dating

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1904). “The professor at the breakfast-table”

  30 Copy quote

• Civilization is the process of reducing the infinite to the finite.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Art, Philosophy, Civilization

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Richard A. Posner (1997). “The Essential Holmes: Selections from the Letters, Speeches, Judicial Opinions, and Other Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.”, p.9, University of Chicago Press

  12 Copy quote

• As we grow older we think more and more of old persons and of old things and places. As to old persons, it seems as if we never know how much they have to tell until we are old ourselves and they have been gone twenty or thirty years. Once in a while we come upon some survivor of his or her generation that we have overlooked, and feel as if we had recovered one of the lost books of Livy or fished up the golden candlestick from the ooze of the Tiber.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Book, Thinking, Years

  6 Copy quote

• It is a good plan to have a book with you in all places and at all times. If you are presently without, hurry without delay to the nearest shop and buy one of mine.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Book, Delay, All Time

  8 Copy quote

• The Amen of nature is always a flower.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Nature, Flower, Blossoming

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

  24 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

• Stillness of person and steadiness of features are signal marks of good breeding.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Ancestry, Signals, Breeding

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Professor At The Breakfast Table”, p.139, Reprint Services Corporation

  11 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

• Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Memories, Smell, Imagination

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Autocrat Of The Breakfast Table”, p.75, Reprint Services Corporation

  16 Copy quote

• [Science is] piecemeal revelation.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Science, Revelations

  7 Copy quote

• 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

• I would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the purpose.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Long, Purpose, Use

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Medical Essays”, p.302, Reprint Services Corporation

  10 Copy quote

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