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Oliver Wendell Holmes Quotes and Quotations
 You commit a sin of omission if you do not utilize all the power that is within you. All men have claims on man, and to the man with special talents, this is a very special claim. It is required that a man take part in the actions and clashes of his time than the peril of being judged not to have lived at all. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Ability and Achievement Quotes  Every calling is great when greatly pursued. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Ability and Achievement Quotes I confess that altruistic and cynically selfish talk seem to me about equally unreal. 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 neighbour 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 neighbour; you must be living with your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird on the wing. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Ability and Achievement Quotes The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Advice Quotes An older author is constantly rediscovering himself in the more or less fossilized productions of his earlier years. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Aging and Old Age Quotes To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Aging and Old Age Quotes A man over ninety is a great comfort to all his elderly neighbours: he is a picket-guard at the extreme outpost: and the young folks of sixty and seventy feel that the enemy must get by him before he can come near their camp. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Aging and Old Age Quotes A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Aging and Old Age Quotes Longevity is having a chronic disease and taking care of it. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Aging and Old Age Quotes The young man knows the rules but the old man knows the exceptions. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Aging and Old Age Quotes If you think that I am going to bother myself again before I die about social improvement, or read any of those stinking upward and onwarders - you err - I mean to have some good out of being old. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Aging and Old Age Quotes Thou, oh my country, hast thy foolish ways, Too apt to purr at every stranger's praise. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | America and Americans Quotes If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I wouldn't pass it around. Wouldn't be doing anybody a favour. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't say embrace trouble. That's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say, meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Anxiety and Worry Quotes The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the centre of each and every town or city. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | The City and the Country Quotes People who honestly mean to be true, really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be 'consistent'. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Consistency Quotes The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Conviction and Belief Quotes Nature, when she invented, manufactured and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Critics and Criticism Quotes Most persons have died before they expired - died to all earthly longings, so that the last breath is only, as it were, the locking of the door of the already deserted mansion. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Death and Dying Quotes After sixty years the stern sentence of the burial service seems to have a meaning that one did not notice in former years. There begins to be something personal about it. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Death and Dying Quotes The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Drink, Drinking and Drinkers Quotes A sense of wrongdoing is an enhancement of pleasure. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Enjoyment and Pleasure Quotes A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Environment Quotes The life of the law has not been logic, it has been experience. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Experience Quotes Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Fame and Celebrities Quotes Certainty generally is illusion and repose is not the destiny of man. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Fate and Destiny Quotes Heredity is an omnibus in which all our ancestors ride, and every now and then one of them puts his head out and embarrasses us. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Heredity Quotes A man is a kind of inverted thermometer, the bulb uppermost, and the column of self-valuation is all the time going up and down. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Homo Sapiens Quotes Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Ideas Quotes A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Ignorance Quotes This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Justice Quotes Law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life. Its history is the history of the moral development of the race. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Law and Lawyers Quotes Lawyers spend a great deal of time shovelling smoke. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Law and Lawyers Quotes The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Law and Lawyers Quotes The reward of a general is not a bigger tent - but command. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Leaders and Leadership Quotes The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic... The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Liberty and Human Rights Quotes Life is action and passion; therefore, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of the time, at peril of being judged not to have lived. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Life Quotes I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirm the worth of life as an end in itself, as against the saints who deny it. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Life Quotes Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Life Quotes Husband and wife come to look alike at last. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Marriage Quotes A general flavour of mild decay, but nothing local, as one may say. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Medicine and Sickness Quotes So long as the body is affected through the mind, no audacious device, even of the most manifestly dishonest character, can fail of producing occasional good to those who yield to it an implicit or even a partial faith. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Medicine and Sickness Quotes A man must get a thing before he can forget it. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Memory Quotes I should like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a gorilla that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Men and Women Quotes 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. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Originality Quotes When I feel inclined to read poetry I take down my dictionary. The poetry of words is quite as beautiful as that of sentences. The author may arrange the gems effectively but their shape and lustre have been given by the attrition of ages. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Poets and Poetry Quotes When you write in prose you say what you mean. When you write in rhyme you say what you must. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Poets and Poetry Quotes The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour upon it, the more it will contract. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Prejudice and Bigotry Quotes A minister is coming down every generation nearer and nearer to the common level of the useful citizen - no oracle at all, but a man of more than average moral instincts, who if he knows anything, knows how little he knows. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Religion Quotes Men are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; they always did, they always will, and if you don't make it of wood, you must make it of words. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Religion Quotes Apology is only egotism wrong side out. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Repentance and Apology Quotes Apology - a desperate habit, and one that is rarely cured. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Repentance and Apology Quotes A sick man that gets talking about himself, a woman that gets talking about her baby, and an author that begins reading out of his own book, never know when to stop. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Self and Self-Knowledge Quotes Speak clearly, if you speak at all; Carve every word before you let it fall. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Speakers and Speeches Quotes Talking is like playing on the harp, there is as much in laying the hand on the strings to stop their vibrations as in twanging them to bring out their music. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Taste Quotes Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Thinking and Thought Quotes Don't be consistent, but be simply true. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Truth Quotes Rough work, iconoclasm, but the only way to get at the truth. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Truth Quotes Nature is in earnest when she makes a woman. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Women Quotes We must think things not words, or at least we must constantly translate our words into the facts for which they stand, if we are to keep to the real and the true. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Words and Language Quotes When I feel inclined to read poetry, I take down my dictionary. The poetry of words is quite as beautiful as the poetry of sentences. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Words and Language Quotes When the style is fully formed, if it has a sweet undersong, we call it beautiful, and the writer may do what he likes in words or syntax. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Writers and Writing Quotes Life is a romantic business, but you have to make the romance. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Happiness Quotes The man who thinks his wife, his baby, his house, his horse, his dog, and himself severely unequalled, is almost sure to be a good-humored person. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Forgiveness Quotes Grateful for the blessing lent of simple tastes and mind content! - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Forgiveness Quotes Friendship is the pleasing game of interchanging praise. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Friendship Quotes Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Friendship Quotes Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant things from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell him. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Friendship Quotes Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Friendship Quotes One unquestioned text we read, All doubt beyond, all fear above; Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed Can burn or blot it: God is Love. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | God Quotes Faith, as an intellectual state, is self-reliance. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Faith and Unity Quotes Faith implies the disbelief of a lesser fact in favor of a greater. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Faith and Unity Quotes The great act of faith is when a man decides that he is not God. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Faith and Unity Quotes The secret of my success is that at an early age I discovered I was not God. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Self-Acceptance Quotes We expect more of ourselves than we have any right to. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Self-Acceptance Quotes A day's impact is better than a month of dead pull. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | One Day Quotes Pick my left pocket of its silver dime, but spare the right-it holds my golden time! - Oliver Wendell Holmes | One Day Quotes Realize life as an end in itself. Functioning is all there is. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | One Day Quotes A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | One Day Quotes When I want to understand what is happening today or try to decide what will happen tomorrow, I look back. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | The Past Quotes Imitation is a necessity of human nature. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Role Models Quotes People who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be "consistent." - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Creating Positive Change Quotes Every year, if not every day, we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Decisions Quotes Systems die; instincts remain. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Instincts Quotes We expect more of ourselves than we have any right to. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Realistic Expectations Quotes 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. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Goals Quotes The longing for certainty ... is in every human mind. But certainty is generally illusion. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Doubts and Uncertainties Quotes Every year, if not every day, we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Doubts and Uncertainties Quotes Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cock-sure of many things that were not so. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Doubts and Uncertainties Quotes When in doubt, do it. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Doubts and Uncertainties Quotes rouble creates a capacity to handle it. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Courage Quotes The reward of the general is not a bigger tent, but command. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Success Quotes 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 in your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird on the wing. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Concentration Quotes Life is a great bundle of little things. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Time Quotes Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that; one stitch at a time taken patiently, and the pattern will come out all right, like embroidery. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Time Quotes For me, at least, there came moments when faith wavered. But there is the great lesson and the great triumph: keep the fire burning until, by and by, out of the mass of sordid details there comes some result. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Perseverance Quotes The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | No pressure, no diamonds. Quotes Love is the master key which opens the gates of happiness. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Life Quotes Love is the master key which opens the gates of happiness. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Lighten up Quotes The AmenT of Nature is always a flower. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Nature Quotes I hate being placed on committees. They are always having meetings at which half are absent and the rest late. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Professions and Work Quotes The riders in a race do not stop short when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter before coming to a standstill. There is time to hear the kind voice of friends and to say to one's self: "The work is done." - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Age Quotes Apology is only egotism wrong side out. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Apology Quotes What a blessed thing it is that nature, when she invented, manufactured and patented her audiors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left! - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Criticism Quotes Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Hope Quotes Logic is logic. That's all I say. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Logic Quotes I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind and all the worse for the fishes. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Medicine Quotes The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great scholars great men. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Study Quotes The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Talent Quotes Man has his will, - but woman has her way. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Women Quotes Every calling is great when greatly pursued. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Great Quotes Every calling is great when greatly pursued. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Great Quotes Every calling is great when greatly pursued. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Great Quotes Every calling is great when greatly pursued. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Great Quotes Every calling is great when greatly pursued. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Great Quotes Every calling is great when greatly pursued. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Great Quotes Every calling is great when greatly pursued. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Great Quotes Every calling is great when greatly pursued. - Oliver Wendell Holmes | Great Quotes 
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