I know of no teachers so powerful and persuasive as the little army of specialists. They carry no banners, they beat no… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Army Copy Share Image
A great man represents a great ganglion in the nerves of society, or to vary the figure, a strategic point in the… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Copy Share Image
The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky, but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Brooding Copy Share Image
I dare say that I have worked off my fundamental formula on you that the chief end of man is to frame… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Chiefs Copy Share Image
Men are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; they always did, they… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Fantasy Copy Share Image
You hear that boy laughing?you think he's all fun; But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; The children… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Angel Copy Share Image
Anytime you see a Hungarian, kick him. He'll know why. Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Copy Share Image
If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Copy Share Image
To be civilized is to be potentially master of all possible ideas, and that means that one has got beyond being shocked,… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Aesthetic Copy Share Image
General propositions do not decide concrete cases. The decision will depend on a judgment or intuition more subtle than any articulate major… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Copy Share Image
Even the wisest woman you talk to is ignorant of something you may know, but an elegant woman never forgets her elegance. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Beauty Copy Share Image
Science ... in other words, knowledge-is not the enemy of religion; for, if so, then religion would mean ignorance. But it is… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Antagonist Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Knowledge-it excites prejudices to call it science-is advancing as irresistibly, as majestically, as remorselessly as the ocean moves in upon the shore. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Copy Share Image
Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly an overestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from our generic humanity. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Copy Share Image
The rules of evidence in the main are based on experience, logic, and common sense, less hampered by history than some parts… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Common sense Copy Share Image
We must think things not words, or at least we must constantly translate our words into the facts for which they stand,… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Facts Copy Share Image
What a new face courage puts on everything. - Ralph Waldo Emerson To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Cheerful Copy Share Image
It is mere childishness to expect men to believe as their fathers did; that is, if they have any minds of their… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Age Copy Share Image
There is nothing like the dead cold hand of the past to take down our tumid egotism and lead us into the… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Cold Copy Share Image
The law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life. Its history is the history of the moral development of… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Deposits Copy Share Image
There is one gratification an old author can afford a certain class of critics; that namely, of comparing him as he is… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Books Copy Share Image
Most people have died before they expire; died to all earthly longings, so that the last breath is only, as it were,… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Breaths Copy Share Image
But the moment you turn a corner you see another straight stretch ahead and there comes some further challenge to your ambition. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Ambition Copy Share Image
To brag little, to lose well, / To crow gently if in luck, / To pay up, to own up, / To… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Copy Share Image
You make me chuckle when you say that you are no longer young, that you have turned twenty-four. A man is or… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Copy Share Image
I should like to see any kind of man, distinguishable from a gorilla, that some good and even pretty woman could not… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Feminism Copy Share Image
For my part I think it is a less evil that some criminals should escape, than that the government should play an… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Crime Copy Share Image
Modesty and reverence are no less virtues of freemen than the democratic feeling which will submit neither to arrogance nor to servility. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Arrogance Copy Share Image
Go on, fair Science; soon to thee Shall Nature yield her idle boast; Her vulgar lingers formed a tree, But thou hast… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Copy Share Image
Poverty comes pleading not for charity, for the most part, but imploring us to find a purchaser for its unmarketable wares. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Charity Copy Share Image
The ideas of the classics, so far as living, are our commonplaces. It is the modern books that give us the latest… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Book Copy Share Image
On every stem, on every leaf,... and at the root of everything that grew, was a professional specialist in the shape of… — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Copy Share Image
