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To be civilized is to be potentially master of all possible ideas, and that means that one has got beyond being shocked, although one preserves one's own moral aesthetic preferences.


Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

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To be civilized is to be potentially master of all possible ideas, and that means that one has got b...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, One Nation evermore! - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.,
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, SR. Jane Heard.
ONE It is the province of knowledge to speak And it is the privilege of wisdom to listen. -Oliver Wende...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES To be one's own master is to be the slave of self.
NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY All I ever did to that apartment was hang fifty yards of yellow theatrical silk across the bedroom w...
JOAN DIDION We can never make proper goodbyes. It was your last ride in a Checker cab and you had no warning. It...
COLSON WHITEHEAD A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions. ~Oliver Wendal...
K. LANGSTON To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one's be...
WILLIAM JAMES One sheds one's sicknesses in books - repeats and presents again one's emotions, to be maste...
D. H. LAWRENCE Picasso said once when being interviewed that one should not be one's own connoisseur.
KENNETH KOCH Do I have the courage of being a ruthless man to myself with the complete knowledge on my manner or ...
FEREIDOON YAZDI I'm sure that I know that, it's behind one of all doors.
DEYTH BANGER One has to draw upon one's own musical thoughts and one's own musical acumen, and not to be ...
JESSYE NORMAN You don't know, oh, oh
You don't know you're beautiful.
ONE DIRECTION Love yourself and your expression, you can't go wrong.
KRS-ONE We get rated down by homeowners associations because we have no slums.
DAY ONE If we could only have this life for one more day. If we could only turn back time. You know I'll be ...
ONE DIRECTION You know I'll be
Your Life
Your Voice
Your Reason To Be
My Love
My Heart...
ONE DIRECTION do not cry , you can focus the light spot with the eyes , the eyes of your heart . smile
MISTER ONE Everyone loves the David and Goliath story, but if Goliath had slain David, it'd never have made the...
DAY ONE I've been coming here since Day One, ... Watching games at home is no fun. It's boring. Here, we get...
DAY ONE If it was $10 a gallon, I'd be buying it today since you can't get it anywhere else,
DAY ONE Get every drop in there. Can't lose none,
DAY ONE big, medium and small.
DAY ONE Yes, look, I don't think I can explain this any better to you, but we don't want to ... Well, I gues...
DAY ONE You hand fits in mine like its made to be but bear this in mind it was meant to be and im joining up...
ONE DIRECTION Tell me I'm a screwed up mess, that I never listen, listen. Tell me you don't want my kiss, that ...
ONE DIRECTION You're impossible to resist, but I wouldn't bet your heart on it. It's like I'm finally awake, and...
ONE DIRECTION Baby you light up my world like nobody else. The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed. An...
ONE DIRECTION Why did the mushroom go to the party?
Because he's a fungi!
ONE DIRECTION A debate has one purpose, one purpose only, and that is to facilitate the exchange of ideas directly...
JIM LEHRER I believe that the plight of life and all existence is to master one's self, you know, one day a...
CEELO GREEN Most powerful of all powers in its holy insinuation is _being_. _To be_ is more powerful than even _...
GEORGE MACDONALD ... perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked. Thanks t...
PEARL S. BUCK Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or id...
ANDRE MALRAUX One's only rival is one's own potentialities. One's only failure is failing to live up t...
ABRAHAM MASLOW Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns to be amused rather than shocked.
ROBERT BROWNING The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to l...
JOHN KEATS If time is money, it seems moral to save time, above all one's own, and such parsimony is excuse...
THEODOR ADORNO Changes are not only possible and predictable, but to deny them is to be an accomplice to one's ...
GAIL SHEEHY Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked.
PEARL S. BUCK To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself sho...
EPICTETUS To sit for one's portrait is like being present at one's own creation.
ALEXANDER SMITH To be or not to be isn't the question. The question is how to prolong being.
TOM ROBBINS Abatement in the hostility of one's enemies must never be thought to signify they have been won ...
QUENTIN CRISP Ah well, perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked.
PEARL BUCK Ah well, perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked.
PEARL S. BUCK To be, or not to be, that is the question.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE One isn't born one's self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people&#...
V. S. NAIPAUL Without faith that there's a world beyond the one we live in, I don't see how it's possi...
ROBERT SMITH The road will be one long, I'm sure at that. So far the real friends are few, but few more challange...
DEYTH BANGER Never, never rest contented with any circle of ideas, but always be certain that a wider one is stil...
PEARL BAILEY Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one's own Trojan horse.
REBECCA WEST I know now: what is is all that matters. Not the thing you know is meant to be, not what could be, n...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS The 5th Amendment is an old friend and a good friend. one of the great landmarks in men's strugg...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one's better abilities or ide...
MAXWELL MALTZ I think you also understand that one of the key things that's got to be done in Iraq is to build...
JOHN ABIZAID It is not enough to be an upright man, we must be seen to be one; society does not exist on moral id...
HONORE DE BALZAC You want to believe that there's one relationship in life that's beyond betrayal. A relation...
CALEB CARR One's own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one's Maker and no one else'...
MAHATMA GANDHI To love one that is great, is almost to be great one's self.
ELAINE DUNDY To be stabbed in the back by a person who appears to be good but has a cloak and dagger routine is d...
GARY F EVANS... Somehow our society has formed a one-sided view of the human personality, and for some reason everyo...
LEV VYGOTSKY Contentment with little or nothing to eat although one may have a great appetite; to awaken instantl...
CHANAKYA Stories are one of the means by which a culture preserves its identity.
EDWARD ZWICK I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So ...
MAYA ANGELOU To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also asha...
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE So that's why one of my rules of parody writing is that it's gotta be funny regardless of wh...
AL YANKOVIC Sure, one can always get the students to relax and be happy - entertained, but although being laid b...
DONALD NORMAN To be or not to be. That's not really a question.
JEAN-LUC GODARD The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one's designs to one's means.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no...
HERBERT SPENCER No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no...
HERBERT SPENCER Now, to read poetry at all is to have an ideal anthology of one's own, and in that possession to...
WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY One has to be fully committed to one's career. Otherwise, there's no point.
LATA MANGESHKAR There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one...
ALAN PATON Problems or successes, they all are the results of our own actions. Karma. The philosophy of action ...
MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI This is a phenomenon that is taking over, and potentially e-mail can become the number one means of ...
TIM WHITE Because Buffy really has become the straight man, every once in a while it's nice to be the one ...
SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR If attempting to make the world a civilized one, makes you a bad woman in the eyes of the dumb patri...
ABHIJIT NASKAR It is by developing the individual that he is prepared for that wonderful manifestation of the human...
MARIA MONTESSORI In such a porcelain life, one likes to be sure that all is well lest one stumble upon one's hope...
EMILY DICKINSON It is possible to be a master in false philosophy, easier, in fact, than to be a master in the truth...
GEORGE SANTAYANA There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own...
ALDOUS HUXLEY It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest...
MAHATMA GANDHI To be rich simply means,to be able to meet people's need.
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) when your heart touched mine,I knew then we were one.
THERESA M WILSON To be rich simply means to be beneficial to others.
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) More than any woman I ever knew, she comforted.' -Mrs. Huxley about Emma
DEBORAH HEILIGMAN That's silly,' said Martha. 'Friends should always tell each other the truth.
JAMES MARSHALL Kindness is the essence of greatness and the fundamental characteristic of the noblest men and women...
JOSEPH B. WIRTHLIN In this long eternal quest to be more like our Savior, may we try to be “perfect” men and women ...
JEFFREY R. HOLLAND And we learned that you don't have to be famous or rich or physically healthy to be a leader. You ju...
JOAN BAUER There is no tomorrow to remember if we don’t do something today, and to live most fully today, we ...
THOMAS S. MONSON Beauty—real everlasting beauty—lives not on our faces, but in our attitude and our actions. It l...
JUSTINA CHEN One has a responsibility to clean up one's space and make it livable as far as one's own res...
WOLE SOYINKA In the history of pilot reports, 'Seinfeld' has got to be one of the worst of all time.
WARREN LITTLEFIELD There is only one real deprivation... and that is not to be able to give one's gifts to those on...
MAY SARTON There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own se...
ALDOUS HUXLEY

More Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

If I were dying, my last words would be: Have faith and pursue the unknown end.
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. Every calling is great when greatly pursued.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The mode by which the inevitable comes to pass is effort.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. When in doubt, do it.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions th...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Between two groups of people who want to make inconsistent kinds of worlds, I see no remedy but forc...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The language of judicial decision is mainly the language of logic. And the logical method and form f...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Every idea is an incitement... eloquence may set fire to reason.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. A man is usually more careful of his money than of his principles.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy - I don'...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Beware how you take away hope from another human being.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. A new untruth is better than an old truth.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. It seems to me that at this time we need education in the obvious more than investigation of the obs...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Even for practical purposes theory generally turns out the most important thing in the end.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Young man, the secret of my success is that at early age I discovered that I was not God.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Eloquence may set fire to reason.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Life is action and passion; therefore, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The great act of faith is when a man decides he is not God.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts but learning how to make fac...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The rule of joy and the law of duty seem to me all one.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. I hate facts. I always say the chief end of man is to form general propositions -- adding that no ge...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our father's have done them or our ne...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. I confess that altruistic and cynically selfish talk seem to me about equally unreal. With all humil...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Every year, if not every day, we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The riders in a race do not stop when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter before...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. For I say unto you in all sadness of conviction that to think great thoughts you must be heroes as w...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. For, stripped of the temporary associations which gave rise to it, it is now the moment when by comm...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts, but learning how to make fa...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. You make me chuckle when you say that you are no longer young, that you have turned twenty-four. A m...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any o...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best book...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. To be 70 years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be 40 years old.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. The great act of faith is when a man decides he is not God.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. To know is not less than to feel.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A page of history is worth a pound of logic.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Every year, if not every day, we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. People talk fundamentals and superlatives and then make some changes of detail.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in which direction we are moving.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. If a man hasn't got plenty of good common sense, the more science he has the worse for his patient.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. I despise making the most of one's time. Half of the pleasures of life consist of the opportunities ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at the touch, nay, you may kick it about all day l...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Nothing is so frequent as to mistake an ordinary human gift for a special and extraordinary endowmen...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Every event that a man would master must be mounted on the run, and no man ever caught the reins of ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimension.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. To obtain a man's opinion of you, make him mad.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas [and] the best test of truth is t...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are movi...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. It is the province of knowledge to speak
And it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passio...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, b...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. To live is to function. That is all there is in living.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will c...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Our test of truth is a reference to either a present or imagined future majority in favour of our vi...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A moment's insight is sometimes worth a lifetime's experience.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Carve every word before you let it fall.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. When I want to understand what is happening today or try to decide what will happen tomorrow, I look...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. What I wouldn't give to be seventy again!
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Life is action and passion; therefore it is required of a man that he should share the passion and a...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Don't be 'consistent,' but be simply true.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. The man of action has the present, but the thinker controls the future.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will c...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. It seems to me that at this time we need education in the obvious more than the investigation of the...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul w...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Beware how you take away hope from any human being.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprung up.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Men must turn square corners when they deal with the Government.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A man is usually more careful of his money than of his principles.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Life is action and passion; therefore, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. You commit a sin of omission if you do not utilize all the power that is within you. All men have cl...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. The riders in a race do not stop when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter before...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have...
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. Beware how you take away hope from any human being.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul w...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. For I say unto you in all sadness of conviction that to think great thoughts you must be heroes as w...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. You make me chuckle when you say that you are no longer young, that you have turned twenty-four. A m...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprung up.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome,...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us t...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The rules of evidence in the main are based on experience, logic, and common sense, less hampered by...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Life is a romantic business. It is painting a picture, not doing a sumbut you have to make the roman...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Great constitutional provisions must be administered with caution. Some play must be allowed for the...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES It cannot be helped, it is as it should be, that the law is behind the times.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES When twenty years ago a vague terror went over the earth and the word socialism began to be heard, I...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Nature has but one judgment on wrong conductif you can call that a judgment which seemingly has no r...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES I do not think the United States would come to an end if we lost our power to declare an Act of Cong...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. The most stringen...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES I always say, as you know, that if my fellow citizens want to go to Hell I will help them. Its my jo...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES I confess that I do not understand the principle on which the power to fix a minimum for the wages o...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Gentlemen, to the lady without whom I should never have survived for eighty, nor sixty, nor yet thir...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even m...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A question like the present should be disposed of without undue delay. But a State cannot be expecte...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The general rule, at least, is that while property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulati...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Speak not too well of one who scarce will knowHimself transfigured in its roseate glow;Say kindly of...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Every living sentence which shows a mind at work for itself is to be welcomed. It is not the first u...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The riders in a race do not stop short when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES O Damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q. !Strange is the gift that I owe to you;Such a gift as never a kingSave ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES I should like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a gorilla that some good and even prett...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES There is no time like the old time, when you and I were young,
When the buds of April blossomed, ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Old books, you know well, are books of the world's youth, and new books are the fruits of its age.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The most foolish kind of a book is a kind of leaky boat on the sea of wisdom; some of the wisdom wil...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES We must have a weak spot or two in our character before we can love it much.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A new untruth is better than an old truth.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at the touch, nay, you may kick it about all day l...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES To live is to function. That is all there is in living.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES It is faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth looking at.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Love is the master key which opens the gates of happiness.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Every calling is great when greatly pursued.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not dri...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A few can touch the magic string, and noisy fame is proud to win them: Alas for those that never sin...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The older author is constantly rediscovering himself in the more or less fossilized productions of h...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Men are idolaters and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; t...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimension.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it will co...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays the pleasing game of interchanging praise.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES You commit a sin of omission if you do not utilize all the power that is within you. All men have cl...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A good soldier, like a good horse, cannot be of a bad color.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense o...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES I firmly believe that if the whole material medical could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul w...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Our brains our seventy year clocks, the angel of life winds them up once and for all, then closes th...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES People talk fundamentals and superlatives and then make some changes of detail.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Simple people... are very quick to see the live facts which are going on about them.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES What a comfort a dull but kindly person is, to be sure, at times! A ground-glass shade over a gas-la...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Stupidity often saves a man from going mad.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great scholars great men.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES This is a court of law young man, not a court of justice.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide --that is, violent treatment of a word wi...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Knowledge like timber shouldn't be mush use till they are seasoned.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES This is an inquisitive age, and if we insist on piling up beyond a certain height knowledge which is...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Good Americans when they die, go to Paris.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best book...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Several years before birth, advertise for a couple of parents belonging to long-lived families.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall;
A mother's secret hope outlives them al...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action o...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Beauty is the index of a larger fact than wisdom.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES ... the hydrostatic paradox of controversy. Don't you know what that means? Well, I will tell you. Y...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if it has common sense on the ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES And when you stick on conversation's burrs, don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Little-minded people's thoughts move in such small circles that five minutes conversation gives you ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Grow we must, if we outgrow all that loves us.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprung up.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Man's mind, stretched by a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to i...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES There never was an idea started that woke up men out of their stupid indifference but its originator...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES What I call a good patient is one who, having found a good physician, sticks to him till he dies.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The freeman, casting with unpurchased hand the vote that shakes the turrets of the land.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES