Oliver Wendell Quotes & Sayings

Why can't somebody give us a list of things everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of the things that everybody says but nobody thinks? — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

The only prize much cared for by the powerful is power. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

A good soldier, like a good horse, cannot be of a bad color. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

As late as 1920, some 244,000 Civil War veterans were still living, several of whom were in Congress, while Union hero Oliver Wendell Holmes sat on the U.S. Supreme Court. As D. W. Brogan, an astute observer of national trends, would write: "The impact of the Civil War on American life and American memory can hardly be exaggerated. It is still 'the war.'" Brogan expressed this opinion in 1944 - during World War II. Not until the last Union and Confederate veterans died out in the 1940s would the national memory be truly rid of the Civil War. — Douglas Brinkley

Have the courage to act instead of react. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Leisure only means a chance to do other jobs that demand attention. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

People talk fundamentals and superlatives and then make some changes of detail. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The great act of faith is when a man decides he is not God. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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.

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way - and the fools know it. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

People who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be 'consistent'. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

The law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life. Its history is the history of the moral development of the race. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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, Sr.

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.

Grow we must, if we outgrow all that loves us. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Certitude leads to violence. This is a proposition that has an easy application and a difficult one. The easy application is to ideoologues, dogmatists, and bullies
people who think that their rigtness justifies them in imposing on anyone who does not happen to suscribe to their particular ideology, dogma or notion of turf. If the conviction of rightness is powerful enough, resistance to it will be met, sooner or later by force. There are people like this in every sphere of life, and it is natural to feel that the world would be a better place without them! — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Death tugs at my ear and says, 'Live. I am coming. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

There is one gratification an old author can afford a certain class of critics; that namely, of comparing him as he is with what he was. It is a pleasure to mediocrity to have its superiors brought within range. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

I confess that altruistic and cynically selfish talk seem to me about equally unreal. With all humility, I think whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, infinitely more important than the vain attempt to love one's neighbor as one's self. If you want to hit a bird on the wing you must have all your will in focus, you must not be thinking about yourself, and equally, you must not be thinking about your neighbor; you must be living with your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird on the wing. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Young man, the secret of my success is that an early age I discovered that I was not God. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

I should like to see any kind of man, distinguishable from a gorilla, that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Youth fades, love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

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.

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

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.

A mind once stretched by thoughts of heaven will never regain it's original shape (a shameless tweak of a quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes, US author and physician) — Serenity McLean

I would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the purpose. — Oliver Wendell Holmes

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 Jr.

Reason may be the lever, but sentiment gives you the fulcrum and the place to stand on if you want to move the world. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Every idea is an incitement ... eloquence may set fire to reason. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

To us who remain behind is left this day of memories. Every year
in the full tide of spring, at the height of the symphony of flowers and love and life
there comes a pause, and through the silence we hear the lonely pipe of death. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

To be master of any branch of knowledge, you must master those which lie next to it, and thus to know anything you must know all. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

I despise making the most of one's time. Half of the pleasures of life consist of the opportunities one has neglected. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

It's a good thing to be rich and a good thing to be strong, but it is a better thing to be beloved of many friends. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Even a dog knows the difference between being kicked and being stumbled over. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Where we stand is not as important as the direction in which we are moving. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

We have shared the incommunicable experience of war, we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top. In our youth our hearts were touched with fire. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

In order to know whether a human being is young or old, offer it food of different kinds at short intervals. If young, it will eat anything at any hour of the day or night. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

A goose flies by a chart the Royal Geographic Society could not improve. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The young man knows the rules but the old man knows the exceptions. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Reason means truth and those who are not governed by it
take the chance that someday the sunken fact will rip
the bottom out of their boat. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts, but learning how to make facts live. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

But the moment you turn a corner you see another straight stretch ahead and there comes some further challenge to your ambition. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Eloquence may set fire to reason. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings; This is the page whose letters shall be seen, Changed by the sun to words of living green; This is the scholar whose immortal penSpells the first lesson hunger taught to men; These are the lines that heaven-commanded Toil Shows on his deed, - the charter of the soil! — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Simple people ... are very quick to see the live facts which are going on about them. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

We must think things not words, or at least we must constantly translate our words into the facts for which they stand, if we are to keep to the real and the true. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

There are three natural anaesthetics: Sleep, fainting, and death. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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.

There was never an idea started that woke up men out of their stupid indifference but its originator was spoken of as a crank. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Academic life is but half life it is a withdrawal from the fight to utter smart things that cost you nothing except the thinking them from a cloister. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

From forty to fifty a man must move upward, or the natural falling off in the vigor of life will carry him rapidly downward. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The best servant does his work unseen. — Oliver Wendell Holmes

In my opinion, economists and sociologists are the people to whom we ought to turn more than we do for instruction in the grounds and foundations of all rational decisions. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

War? War is an organized bore. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

I hate facts. I always say the chief end of man is to form general propositions - adding that no general proposition is worth a damn. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

The Amen of nature is always a flower. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Men must turn square corners when they deal with the Government. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Man has his will, but woman has her way. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Be willing to commit yourself to a course, perhaps a long and hard one, without being able to foresee exactly where you will come out. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Don't you stay at home of evenings? Don't you love a cushioned seat in a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your feet? — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

There is nothing earthly that lasts so well, as money. A man's learning dies with him, as does his virtues fade out of remembrance, but the dividends on the stocks he bequeaths to his children live and keep his memory green. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

As for the excellent little wretches who grow up in what they are taught, with never a scruple or a query, ... they signify nothing in the intellectual life of the race. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them! — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are going. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The thing I want to do is put as many new ideas into the law as I can, to show how particular solutions involve general theory, and to do it with style. I should like to be admitted to be the greatest jurist in the world. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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.

The history of what the law has been is necessary to the knowledge of what the law is. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Whatever disagreement there may be as to the scope of the phrase "due process of law" there can be no doubt that it embraces the fundamental conception of a fair trial, with opportunity to be heard. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Free competition is worth more to society than it costs. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Most people have died before they expire; died to all earthly longings, so that the last breath is only, as it were, the locking of the door of the already deserted mansion. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

A man is usually more careful of his money than of his principles. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Why should you row a boat race? Why endure the long months of pain in preparation for a fierce half hour that will leave you all but dead? Does anyone ask the question? Is there anyone who would not go through all the costs, and more, for the moment when anguish breaks into triumph or even for the glory of having nobly lost? Is life less than a boat race? If a man will give the blood in his body to win the one, will he spend all the might of his soul to prevail in the other? — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe ... that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market ... That at any rate is the theory of our constitution. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

My experience with public libraries is that the first volume of the book I inquire for is out, unless I happen to want the second, when that is out. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Pretty much all the honest truth telling in the world is done by children. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

There is in all men a demand for the superlative, so much so that the poor devil that has no other way of reaching it attains it by getting drunk. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The very minute a thought is threatened with publicity it seems to shrink towards mediocrity. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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 superstitious fears which were implanted in his imagination, no matter how utterly his reason may reject them. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Think things, not words." In words, many see a need for "social justice" to override "the dictates of the market." In reality, what is called "the market" consists of human beings making their own choices at their own cost. What is called "social justice" is government imposition of the notions of third parties, who pay no price for being wrong. — Thomas Sowell

Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man. It involves the necessity for perpetual choice which is the kind of labor men have always dreaded. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Every library should try to complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. - Oliver Wendell Holmes — David Allen

A great calamity is as old as the trilobites an hour after it has happened. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Pretty much all law consists in forbidding men to do something that they want to do. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Nothing can be so perfect while we possess it as it will seem when remembered. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

When I was in law school I was taught that the great writers were people like [Oliver Wendell] Holmes Jr. and [Benjamin N.] Cardozo. But you go back and read their prose and it's sort of perfumed and very ornate and show-offy. And they're constantly striving for these abstractions that seem archaic nowadays. — Jeffrey Rosen