FastSaying

Our test of truth is a reference to either a present or imagined future majority in favour of our view.


Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

It is the province of knowledge to speak And it is the privilege of wisdom to listen. -Oliver Wende...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, One Nation evermore! - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.,
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, SR. A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions. ~Oliver Wendal...
K. LANGSTON Man can only be certain about the present moment. But is that quite true either? Can he really know ...
MILAN KUNDERA Our test is infallible. Whatever view of reality deepens our sense of the tremendous issues of life ...
DEAN INGE Truth is a point of view, but authenticity can't be faked.
PETER GUBER We all have three sides. We show one when we're with our friends and another when around our family....
KAYLA RAE Belief have a power of expanding our abilities and self-confidence or destroy the opportunities of o...
SUNDAY ADELAJA The spectacle takes us away from our routines. For at least a time, we feel part of something big, c...
NEL NODDINGS The past and the present are within my field of inquiry, but what a man may do in the future is a ha...
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE The Bible never divorces the truth of Christ's future return with our present-day responsibiliti...
ROBERT JEFFRESS The simple truth of our finiteness is that we could, by whatever means, go on interminably only at t...
HANS JONAS It's a symbol of our past, present and future.
DENIS SCUTO We live in the present with knowledge that the past is alive in us – our history speaks to us. The...
KILROY J. OLDSTER The majority of our patients are dually-diagnosed. They either have a mental illness and a drug or a...
BILL ELLIOTT The worst enemy of truth and freedom in our society is the compact majority
HENRIK IBSEN Like a deep sad note
played beneath the ocean
waving through the orb
the memories of ...
PAWAN MISHRA She was scarcely a year older than I was, dark-haired, slender, with a face that would break your he...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN The power of a man, to take it universally, is his present means, to obtain some future apparent goo...
THOMAS HOBBES Today the Court took up the question of televising these proceedings and a majority of the Court rem...
BRIAN LAMB Our judgment and moral categories, our idea of the future, our opinions about the present or about j...
OCTAVIO PAZ Someone who expresses a view that is contrary to the view of the overwhelming majority should be all...
ALBERT GORE, JR. Duration is not a test of truth or falsehood.
ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH Duration is not a test of truth or falsehood.
ANNE LINDBERGH It was a frank discussion about Indian cricket, present and future, and much of what I said was aime...
GREG CHAPPELL 35. God is entitled to a portion of our income—not because He needs it but because we need to give...
JAMES C. DOBSON It's a local focus on celebrating the talents of our community, a way to view our past, whether it's...
IRENE KOEHLER By the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes--a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes.
E.M. FORSTER Unification is not our present goal. That is a future program.
KIM DAE JUNG I'm not saying that I'm better than anyone... I'm just saying that I'm one-of-a-kind.
C LIONG A person of value have skill, a vision & a deep desire to achieve what they dream for. Happiness com...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA A man of guilt acknowledges and changes himself immediately on being hinted slightly about his fault...
ANUJ SOMANY The school year progressed slowly. I felt as if I had been in the sixth grade for years, yet it was ...
LUCY GREALY The value of a consultant;An outsider can see what an insider cannot see or has decided to ignore.
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) A family is like a card game, on one hand, you can get a really bad hand and on the other, your hand...
GARY F EVANS... The worth of a person’s quote is in his or her heart where it takes the birth and the value of the...
ANUJ SOMANY Walking the rugged trail of the unknown destiny can be filled with walls crashing and cracks on the ...
GARY F EVANS... It makes you wonder why the human race can be so selfish and self-centered sometimes, when on cold w...
GARY F EVANS... To have a pet in the family is to invite good health into your lives.It brings happiness to all and ...
GARY F EVANS... I can see you have a great deal of water in your personality. Water never waits. It changes shape an...
ARTHUR GOLDEN كنت أصمت أذعن لمصيري. أحمل دميتي,أنزع ملابسها, أشد شعره�...
مليكة مستظرف The norm which the society at large has set today categorically is in the form of preventive measure...
HENRIETTA NEWTON MARTIN LEGAL CONSULTANT Plunging in “truths” about God is like walking on the bottom of a sea that is not there, searchi...
MARIANA FULGER His life seemed like a deck of cards, and in the midst of all those two’s and three’s someone ha...
TEKOA MANNING If a man decides that it is better for him to resist the demands of a present feeble love, in the na...
LEO TOLSTOY God is not present but Omnipresent. However, In known reference, He cannot be everywhere or nowhere ...
WOHI PURANA I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as we are, then history will...
EDWARD R. MURROW The value of a company can be derived from adding the value of all future dividends written down to ...
STEPHEN ASBURY It is much more valuable to look for the strength in others. You can gain nothing by criticizing the...
DAISAKU IKEDA the deceased don’t want you to forget about them. They just want you to move past it; not to dwell...
JUSTIN PYFROM Divorce the past to marry the present and be blessed with a lovely child of future.
ANUJ SOMANY A great future starts with what you can see
SOTONYE ANGA I am often asked how it is that I am able to value people to such a deep degree. Apparently, I exhib...
C. JOYBELL C. Indeed, this life is a test. It is a test of many things - of our convictions and priorities, our fa...
SHERI L. DEW There's no future in spending our present worrying about our past.
TOM WILSON It was a test of a fragile trust. It was a test of our curiosity and fascination, which walked side ...
JEFF VANDERMEER The past exists only in our memories, the future only in our plans. The present is our only reality.
ROBERT PIRSIG Be grateful for every moment and every breath.
TERESA COLLINS Our actions in the present build the staircase to the future. The question is whether that staircase...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH We, in Syria, our point of view stems from our experience.
BASHAR AL-ASSAD It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely beca...
GIORDANO BRUNO It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely beca...
GIORDANO BRUNO The majority is by no means omniscient just because it is the majority. In fact, I've found that the...
J. PAUL GETTY Every single second of our life,we are creating our past,present and future...
YONG BOON How lucky I am to have known somebody and something that saying goodbye to is so damned awful.
EVANS G. VALENS Stay in the present. It is here we learn from our past, and create our future.
JIM GENOVESE Most people spend their lives either in the past or the future, but my life is supremely concentrate...
GAELIC PROVERB Our past, our present, and whatever remains of our future, absolutely depend on what we do now,
SYLVIA EARLE Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future....
BLAISE PASCAL He uses our past to positively affect our present and secure our future.
EVINDA LEPINS As far back as history records people thinking, thinking people have been befuddled by the mysteries...
LEWIS N. ROE God is giving us a chance to establish a future for our country, laying a new foundation of truth an...
SUNDAY ADELAJA Most of us think we're too busy or too important to rest for a day.
CRAIG GROESCHEL One of our missions was to present the Classic with a view toward enlarging the audience, to 'young ...
EARL GREENBURG We made a couple of birdies and suddenly the momentum swung in our favour.
ANNIKA SORENSTAM Our faith in the present dies out long before our faith in the future.
RUTH BENEDICT There's no future in spending our present worrying about our past.
TOM WILSON Our essential humanity is dependent upon humankind’s ability to join the past and the future with ...
KILROY J. OLDSTER Our lives are just a series of moments. Past moments are unchangeable, future moments are unknowable...
JIM GENOVESE The best way of preparing for the future is to take good care of the present, because we know that i...
THICH NHAT HANH it's okay to feel things. And be who you are about them.
STEPHEN CHOBOSKY All concepts of making a point is another failure of communication.
DEYTH BANGER I just want silence... nothing less... nothing more.
DEYTH BANGER Knowledge causes depression and a lot of pressure.
DEYTH BANGER This is going to take a while. I'm a fantasy author. We have trouble with the concept of brevity.
BRANDON SANDERSON Be yourself and people will like you.
JEFF KINNEY The best person I know is Myself.
JEFF KINNEY If you play football, then for every goal that you score, ask your self, what is the 'grudge of a li...
APURVA GAGLANI I don’t want to start thinking again. Not like I have this last week. I can’t think again. Not e...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY It's strange to describe reading a book as a really great experience, but that's kind of how it felt...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY The mightiest power of death is not that it can make people die, but that it can make the people you...
FREDRIK BACKMAN Closed eyes, heart not beating, but a living love.
AVIS COREA I’m caught between trying to live my life, and trying to run from it.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY I don't want to be somebody's crush.if somebody likes me, i want them to like the real me, not what ...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part.
HENRY JAMES لم يكن بمقدوري سوى الهروب إلى عالمي الخاص: إلى الحلم. أت...
مليكة مستظرف In the late 1990s, I wrote a book from the point of view of a young black woman who has barricaded h...
SUSAN SHREVE The test of tolerance comes when we are in a majority; the test of courage comes when we are in a mi...
RALPH W. STOCKMAN The ordinary experiences of aging alter and clarify your view of past, present, and future.
EDITH PEARLMAN It is up to us, to this present generation of Americans, to take a stand for freedom, to send a mess...
RICK PERRY

More Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

If I were dying, my last words would be: Have faith and pursue the unknown end.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Every calling is great when greatly pursued.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The mode by which the inevitable comes to pass is effort.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. When in doubt, do it.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions th...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Between two groups of people who want to make inconsistent kinds of worlds, I see no remedy but forc...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The language of judicial decision is mainly the language of logic. And the logical method and form f...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Every idea is an incitement... eloquence may set fire to reason.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. A man is usually more careful of his money than of his principles.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy - I don'...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Beware how you take away hope from another human being.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. A new untruth is better than an old truth.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. It seems to me that at this time we need education in the obvious more than investigation of the obs...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Even for practical purposes theory generally turns out the most important thing in the end.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Young man, the secret of my success is that at early age I discovered that I was not God.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Eloquence may set fire to reason.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Life is action and passion; therefore, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The great act of faith is when a man decides he is not God.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts but learning how to make fac...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The rule of joy and the law of duty seem to me all one.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. I hate facts. I always say the chief end of man is to form general propositions -- adding that no ge...
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 ne...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. I confess that altruistic and cynically selfish talk seem to me about equally unreal. With all humil...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Every year, if not every day, we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The riders in a race do not stop when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter before...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. For I say unto you in all sadness of conviction that to think great thoughts you must be heroes as w...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. For, stripped of the temporary associations which gave rise to it, it is now the moment when by comm...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts, but learning how to make fa...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. You make me chuckle when you say that you are no longer young, that you have turned twenty-four. A m...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any o...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best book...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. To be 70 years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be 40 years old.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. The great act of faith is when a man decides he is not God.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. To know is not less than to feel.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A page of history is worth a pound of logic.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Every year, if not every day, we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. People talk fundamentals and superlatives and then make some changes of detail.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in which direction we are moving.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. If a man hasn't got plenty of good common sense, the more science he has the worse for his patient.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. I despise making the most of one's time. Half of the pleasures of life consist of the opportunities ...
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 l...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Nothing is so frequent as to mistake an ordinary human gift for a special and extraordinary endowmen...
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 ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimension.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. To obtain a man's opinion of you, make him mad.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas [and] the best test of truth is t...
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 movi...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. It is the province of knowledge to speak
And it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passio...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, b...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. To live is to function. That is all there is in living.
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 c...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A moment's insight is sometimes worth a lifetime's experience.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Carve every word before you let it fall.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. When I want to understand what is happening today or try to decide what will happen tomorrow, I look...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. What I wouldn't give to be seventy again!
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Life is action and passion; therefore it is required of a man that he should share the passion and a...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Don't be 'consistent,' but be simply true.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. The man of action has the present, but the thinker controls the future.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked.
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 c...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. It seems to me that at this time we need education in the obvious more than the investigation of the...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul w...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Beware how you take away hope from any human being.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprung up.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Men must turn square corners when they deal with the Government.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. A man is usually more careful of his money than of his principles.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Life is action and passion; therefore, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. You commit a sin of omission if you do not utilize all the power that is within you. All men have cl...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. The riders in a race do not stop when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter before...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Beware how you take away hope from any human being.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul w...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. For I say unto you in all sadness of conviction that to think great thoughts you must be heroes as w...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. You make me chuckle when you say that you are no longer young, that you have turned twenty-four. A m...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprung up.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome,...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. To be civilized is to be potentially master of all possible ideas, and that means that one has got b...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us t...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. The rules of evidence in the main are based on experience, logic, and common sense, less hampered by...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Life is a romantic business. It is painting a picture, not doing a sumbut you have to make the roman...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Great constitutional provisions must be administered with caution. Some play must be allowed for the...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES It cannot be helped, it is as it should be, that the law is behind the times.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES When twenty years ago a vague terror went over the earth and the word socialism began to be heard, I...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Nature has but one judgment on wrong conductif you can call that a judgment which seemingly has no r...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES I do not think the United States would come to an end if we lost our power to declare an Act of Cong...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. The most stringen...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES I always say, as you know, that if my fellow citizens want to go to Hell I will help them. Its my jo...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES I confess that I do not understand the principle on which the power to fix a minimum for the wages o...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Gentlemen, to the lady without whom I should never have survived for eighty, nor sixty, nor yet thir...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even m...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A question like the present should be disposed of without undue delay. But a State cannot be expecte...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The general rule, at least, is that while property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulati...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Speak not too well of one who scarce will knowHimself transfigured in its roseate glow;Say kindly of...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Every living sentence which shows a mind at work for itself is to be welcomed. It is not the first u...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The riders in a race do not stop short when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES O Damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q. !Strange is the gift that I owe to you;Such a gift as never a kingSave ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES I should like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a gorilla that some good and even prett...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES There is no time like the old time, when you and I were young,
When the buds of April blossomed, ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Old books, you know well, are books of the world's youth, and new books are the fruits of its age.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The most foolish kind of a book is a kind of leaky boat on the sea of wisdom; some of the wisdom wil...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES We must have a weak spot or two in our character before we can love it much.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A new untruth is better than an old truth.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at the touch, nay, you may kick it about all day l...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES To live is to function. That is all there is in living.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES It is faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth looking at.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Love is the master key which opens the gates of happiness.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Every calling is great when greatly pursued.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not dri...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A few can touch the magic string, and noisy fame is proud to win them: Alas for those that never sin...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The older author is constantly rediscovering himself in the more or less fossilized productions of h...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Men are idolaters and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; t...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimension.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it will co...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays the pleasing game of interchanging praise.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES You commit a sin of omission if you do not utilize all the power that is within you. All men have cl...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A good soldier, like a good horse, cannot be of a bad color.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense o...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES I firmly believe that if the whole material medical could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul w...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Our brains our seventy year clocks, the angel of life winds them up once and for all, then closes th...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES People talk fundamentals and superlatives and then make some changes of detail.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Simple people... are very quick to see the live facts which are going on about them.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES What a comfort a dull but kindly person is, to be sure, at times! A ground-glass shade over a gas-la...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Stupidity often saves a man from going mad.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great scholars great men.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES This is a court of law young man, not a court of justice.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide --that is, violent treatment of a word wi...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Knowledge like timber shouldn't be mush use till they are seasoned.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES This is an inquisitive age, and if we insist on piling up beyond a certain height knowledge which is...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Good Americans when they die, go to Paris.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best book...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Several years before birth, advertise for a couple of parents belonging to long-lived families.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall;
A mother's secret hope outlives them al...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action o...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Beauty is the index of a larger fact than wisdom.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES ... the hydrostatic paradox of controversy. Don't you know what that means? Well, I will tell you. Y...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if it has common sense on the ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES And when you stick on conversation's burrs, don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Little-minded people's thoughts move in such small circles that five minutes conversation gives you ...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Grow we must, if we outgrow all that loves us.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprung up.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Man's mind, stretched by a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to i...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES There never was an idea started that woke up men out of their stupid indifference but its originator...
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES What I call a good patient is one who, having found a good physician, sticks to him till he dies.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The freeman, casting with unpurchased hand the vote that shakes the turrets of the land.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES