Oliver Wendell Holmes Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 24 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Famous Quotes By Oliver Wendell Holmes
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
See how he throws his baited lines about,/And plays his men as anglers play their trout. — Oliver Wendell Holmes
A mind stretched by a new idea
never shrinks back to its original proportions.
~ — Oliver Wendell Holmes
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
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
The truth is that the whole system of beliefs which comes in with the story of the fall of man ... is gently falling out of enlightened human intelligence. — Oliver Wendell Holmes
I would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the purpose. — Oliver Wendell Holmes
Leverage is everything-don't begin to pry until you've got the long arm on your side. — Oliver Wendell Holmes
No families take so little medicine as those of doctors, except those of apothecaries. — Oliver Wendell Holmes
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
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
We call those poets who are first to mark, Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn, Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark, While others only note that day is gone. — Oliver Wendell Holmes
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
Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades!
Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids!
O, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,
Depart,
be off,
excede,
evade,
erump! — Oliver Wendell Holmes
Yes, child of suffering, thou may'st well be sure He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor! — Oliver Wendell Holmes
The best servant does his work unseen. — Oliver Wendell Holmes
For nothing burns with such amazing speed, As the dry sticks of a religious creed. — Oliver Wendell Holmes
Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers. — Oliver Wendell Holmes
Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus was then alive,
Snuffy old drone from the German hive. — Oliver Wendell Holmes
Life as we call it, is nothing but the edge of the boundless ocean of existence when it comes upon soundings. — Oliver Wendell Holmes
America is the only place where man is full-grown! — Oliver Wendell Holmes
I firmly believe that if the whole material medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be better for mankind-and all the worse for the fishes. — Oliver Wendell Holmes
You may have genius. The contrary is, of course, probable. — Oliver Wendell Holmes