Men Quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

The individual will always be a minority. If a man is in a minority of one, we lock him up.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

Young men know the rules, but old men know the exceptions.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

Young man, the secret of my success is that an early age I discovered that I was not God.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

Deep-seated preferences cannot be argued about-you cannot argue a man into liking a glass of beer.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

The man of action has the present, but the thinker controls the future.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

Every man is an omnibus in which his ancestors ride.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

A man's opinions are generally of much more value than his arguments.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

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

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

There is in all men a demand for the superlative, so much so that the poor devil that has no other way…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

There was never an idea started that woke up men out of their stupid indifference but its originator was spoken of as…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

Men are tattooed with their special beliefs like so many South Sea Islanders; but a real human heart with divine love in…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

The wind blows out, the bubble dies; The spring entomb'd in autumn lies; The dew dries up; the star is shot; The…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man. It involves the necessity for perpetual choice which is the kind of labor…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

The great end of being is to harmonize man with the order of things, and the church has been a good pitch-pipe,…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

I think it not improbable that man, like the grub that prepares a chamber for the winged thing it never has seen…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

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

But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe...that the best test of truth…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

The language of judicial decision is mainly the language of logic. And the logical method and form flatter that longing for certainty…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings; This is the page whose letters…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

There is nothing earthly that lasts so well, as money. A man's learning dies with him, as does his virtues fade out…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

When a man holds his tongue it does not signify much. But when a woman dispenses with the office of the mighty…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

One of the eternal conflicts out of which life is made up is that between the effort of every man to get…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

To be forgotten is to sleep in peace with the undisturbed myriads, no longer subject to the chills and heats, the blasts,…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

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

Why should you row a boat race? Why endure the long months of pain in preparation for a fierce half hour that…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

The mark of a civilized man is his willingness to re-examine his most cherished beliefs.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

Pretty much all law consists in forbidding men to do something that they want to do.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

The advice of their elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

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

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

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

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

From forty to fifty a man must move upward, or the natural falling off in the vigor of life will carry him…

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

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

A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command the latter.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

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

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