Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Quotes
Most popular Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Quotes
Every idea is an incitement.
Eloquence may set fire to reason.
Don't be 'consistent,' but be simply true.
Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.
Every calling is great when greatly pursued.
A page of history is worth a volume of logic.
Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.
The Earth has music for those who will listen.
Everywhere the basis of principle is tradition.
The only prize much cared for by the powerful is power.
The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.
To think great thoughts you must be heroes, as well as idealists.
Historic continuity with the past is not a duty, it is only a necessity.
To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.
Speak clearly if you speak at all; Carve every word before you let if fall.
Nothing can be so perfect while we possess it as it will seem when remembered.
The root of joy, as of duty, is to put all one's powers towards some great end.
A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.
Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so.
We all, whether we know it or not, are fighting to make the kind of a world that we should like.
If I could think that I had sent a spark to those who come after I should be ready to say Goodbye.
Longing for certainty and for repose . . . is in every human mind. But certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.
A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.
