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.A great man represents a great ganglion in the nerves of society, or to vary the figure, a strategic point in the campaign of history, and part of his greatness consists in his being there.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.General propositions do not decide concrete cases. The decision will depend on a judgment or intuition more subtle than any articulate major premise.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.I think it not improbable that man, like the grub that prepares a chamber for the winged thing it never has seen but is to be - that man may have cosmic destinies that he does not understand.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.