Oliver Wendell Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes was the name of two prominent men, father and son:...
Oliver Wendell Holmes quotes about
retirement home feet
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?
sex angel men
A woman never forgets her sex. She would rather talk with a man than an angel, any day.
business giving simplicity
For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have.
women inspiration thinking
When I think of talking, it is of course with a woman. For talking at its best being an inspiration, it wants a corresponding divine quality of receptiveness, and where will you find this but in a woman?
birthday angel hands
Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the hand of the Angel of the Resurrection.
honesty truth iconoclasm
Rough work, iconoclasm, but the only way to get at truth.
ancestry signals breeding
Stillness of person and steadiness of features are signal marks of good breeding.
wise men way
Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way - and the fools know it.
time quilts children
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 the embroidery.
common draught fair flavor genius grand mediocrity neutrality spoils weak
Unpretending mediocrity is good, and genius is glorious; but a weak flavor of genius in an essentially common person is detestable. It spoils the grand neutrality of a commonplace character, as the rinsings of an unwashed wine-glass spoil a draught of fair water.
aim beyond collectors compare fact facts intellects men reason using
There are one-story intellects, two-story intellects, and three-story intellects with skylights. All fact collectors with no aim beyond their facts are one-story men. Two-story men compare reason and generalize, using labors of the fact collectors
fire
Every idea is an incitement...Eloquence may set fire to reason.
certainty
Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so.
trying
It is very lonely sometimes, trying to play God.