Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Quotes

188 Sourced Quotes

I find that the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail — sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it — but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
For there we loved, and where we love is home,
Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts,
Though o'er us shine the jasper-lighted dome:—
The chain may lengthen, but it never parts!

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
One could never remember himself in eternity by the mere fact of having loved or hated any more than by that of having thirsted; love and hate have no more individuality in them than single waves in the ocean;—but the accidents or trivial marks which distinguished those whom we loved or hated make their memory our own forever, and with it that of our own personality also.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
His home! the Western giant smiles,
And twirls the spotty globe to find it;
This little speck, the British Isles?
'T is but a freckle,—never mind it.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
I think you will find that people who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be "consistent".

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
A powerful preacher is open to the same sense of enjoyment—an awful, tremulous, goose-flesh sort of state, but still enjoyment—that a great tragedian feels when he curdles the blood of his audience.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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, Sr.
To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
The god looked out upon the troubled deep
Waked into tumult from its placid sleep;
The flame of anger kindles in his eye
As the wild waves ascend the lowering sky;
He lifts his head above their awful height
And to the distant fleet directs his sight.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
When fades at length our lingering day,
Who cares what pompous tombstones say?
Read on the hearts that love us still,
Hic jacet Joe. Hic jacet Bill.
Hic jacet means here lies.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Each woman virtually summons every man to show cause why he doth not love her.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be better for mankind-and all the worse for the fishes.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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, Sr.
Call him not old whose visionary brain
Holds o'er the post its undivided reign,
For him in vain the envious seasons roll,
Who bears eternal summer in this soul.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
We are very shy of asking questions of those who know enough to destroy with one word the hopes we live on.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Even in common people, conceit has the virtue of making them cheerful; the man who thinks his wife, his baby, his house, his horse, his dog, and himself severally unequalled, is almost sure to be a good-humored person, though liable to be tedious at times.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
There isn't a text in the Bible better worth keeping always in mind than that one, 'Judge not, that ye be not judged.'.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
And when you stick on conversation's burrs,
Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
I like children, —... I like 'em, and I respect 'em. Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by them.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
You don't know, perhaps, but I will tell you; the brain is the palest of all the internal organs, and the heart the reddest. Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of the place it came from, and whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and color of its birthplace.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Speak not too well of one who scarce will know
Himself transfigured in its roseate glow;
Say kindly of him what is, chiefly, true,
Remembering always he belongs to you;
Deal with him as a truant, if you will,
But claim him, keep him, call him brother still!

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold;
But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.