Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Quotes

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.

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.

Science is the topography of ignorance. From a few elevated points we triangulate vast spaces, inclosing infinite unknown details. We cast the lead, and draw up a little sand from abysses we may never reach with our dredges.

Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly an overestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from our generic humanity.

If you can eat sawdust without butter, you can be a success in the law.

Where we stand is not as important as the direction in which we are moving.

And silence, like a poultice, comes To heal the blows of sound.

The language of judicial decision is mainly the language of logic. And the logical method and form flatter that longing for certainty and for repose which is in every human mind. But certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.

To an imagination of any scope the most far reaching form of power is not money, it is the command of ideas

Leisure only means a chance to do other jobs that demand attention.

The provisions of the Constitution are not mathematical formulas having their essence in their form; they are organic, living institutions transplanted from English soil. Their significance is vital, not formal; it is to be gathered not simply by taking the words and a dictionary, but by considering their origin and the line of their growth.

A good soldier, like a good horse, cannot be of a bad color.

The greatest act of faith is when a man understands he is not God.

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.

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.

Every calling is great when greatly pursued.

One of the eternal conflicts out of which life is made up is that between the effort of every man to get the most he can for his services, and that of society, disguised under the name of capital, to get his services for the least possible return.

Who does not feel that Nansen's account of his search for the Pole rather loses than gains in ideal satisfaction by the pretense of a few trifling acquisitions for science?

I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy - I don't disparage envy, but I don't accept it as legitimately my master.

The ideas of the classics, so far as living, are our commonplaces. It is the modern books that give us the latest and most profound conceptions. It seems to me rather a lazy makeshift to mumble over the familiar.

Science ... in other words, knowledge-is not the enemy of religion; for, if so, then religion would mean ignorance. But it is often the antagonist of school-divinity.

Anytime you see a Hungarian, kick him. He'll know why. Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.

Every man is an omnibus in which his ancestors ride.

Research and writing are lonely occupations. It is easy to become discouraged in solitary confinement.

The root of joy, as of duty, is to put all one's powers towards some great end.

If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it around. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it.

Eloquence may set fire to reason.

What a new face courage puts on everything. - Ralph Waldo Emerson To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.

We expect more of ourselves than we have any right to.

Carve every word before you let it fall.

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.

Lawyers spend their professional careers shoveling smoke.

To brag little, to lose well, / To crow gently if in luck, / To pay up, to own up, / To shut up if beaten, / Are the virtues of a sportingman.

The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become.

To be forgotten is to sleep in peace with the undisturbed myriads, no longer subject to the chills and heats, the blasts, the sleet, the dust, which assail in endless succession that shadow of a man which we call his reputation.

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.

The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts.

On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself, as against the saints who deny it.

Apologizing - a very desperate habit - one that is rarely cured. Apology is only egotism wrong side out.

While we've youth in our hearts, we can never grow old.

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!

Any new formula which suddenly emerges in our consciousness has its roots in long trains of thought; it is virtually old when it first makes its appearance among the recognized growths of our intellect.

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!

The history of what the law has been is necessary to the knowledge of what the law is.

Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than what we suspect of what we think.

Men must turn square corners when they deal with the Government.

[The Constitution] is an experiment as all life is an experiment.

Success. Is not the position where you are standing, but which direction you are going.