Famous Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr Quotations

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"Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
"Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"Every year, if not every day, we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"To live is to function. That is all there is in living."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"People talk fundamentals and superlatives and then make some changes of detail."
by 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 like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command the latter."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimension."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"A page of history is worth a pound of logic."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time, at the peril of being not to have lived."
by 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 a thought except as it galloped past him."
by 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 moving -- we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it -- but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"It is the province of knowledge to speak
And it is the privilege of wisdom to listen."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"Nothing is so frequent as to mistake an ordinary human gift for a special and extraordinary endowment."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"Our test of truth is a reference to either a present or imagined future majority in favour of our view."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"The great act of faith is when a man decides he is not God."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in which direction we are moving."
by 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 contract."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas [and] the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"To know is not less than to feel."
by 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."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"The riders in a race do not stop when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter before coming to a standstill. There is time to hear the kind voices of friends and say to oneself, The work is done ."
by 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 neighbors do them, and the same is true of a large part than what we suspect of what we think."
by 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."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
"Life is action and passion; therefore, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of the time, at peril of being judged not to have lived."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
"Most of us retain enough of the theological attitude to think that we are little gods."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
"For, stripped of the temporary associations which gave rise to it, it is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return."
by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.


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