Quotes By Oliver Wendell Holmes

A goose flies by a chart which the Royal Geographical Society could not mend.

I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.

Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children.

Controversy equalizes fools and wise men - and the fools know it.

Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.

Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.

Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.

It is very lonely sometimes, trying to play God.

If I were dying my last words would be: Have faith and pursue the unknown end.

This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice.

Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.

He has half the deed done who has made a beginning.

The Amen of nature is always a flower.

Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light.

Stupidity often saves a man from going mad.

Memory is a net: one that finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook, but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.

Don't you stay at home of evenings? Don't you love a cushioned seat in a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your feet?

Why can't somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks.

Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.

Every idea is an incitement... Eloquence may set fire to reason.

Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.

The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.

Every calling is great when greatly pursued.

A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.

Do not be bullied out of your common sense by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant.

A woman never forgets her sex. She would rather talk with a man than an angel, any day.

A person is always startled when he hears himself called old for the first time.

The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.

Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing.

Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.