1809-1894, American Author, Wit, Poet
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]
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]
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]
The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great scholars great men.
Oliver Wendell Holmes – [Studying]
This is a court of law young man, not a court of justice.
Oliver Wendell Holmes – [Law and Lawyers]
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]
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]
To live is to function. That is all there is in living.
Oliver Wendell Holmes – [Life and Living]
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]
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]
Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light.
Oliver Wendell Holmes – [Truth]
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]
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]
What I call a good patient is one who, having found a good physician, sticks to him till he dies.
Oliver Wendell Holmes – [Doctors]
Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
Oliver Wendell Holmes – [Love]
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]
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]
Young men know the rules, but old men know the exceptions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes – [Rules]
Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all.
Oliver Wendell Holmes – [Secrets]
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