Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. - Hand Quotes

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The noblest service comes from nameless hands,
And the best servant does his work unseen.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
The freeman casting with unpurchased hand
The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
But to radiate the heat of the affections into a clod, which absorbs all that is poured into it, but never warms beneath the sunshine of smiles or the pressure of hand or lip,—this is the great martyrdom of sensitive beings,—most of all in that perpetual auto da fé where young womanhood is the sacrifice.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
One flag, one land, one heart, one hand,
One Nation evermore!

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Little I ask, my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone,
(A very plain brown stone will do,)
That I may call my own;—
And close at hand is such a one,
In yonder street that fronts the sun.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
I never saw an author in my life, saving perhaps one, that did not purr as audibly as a full-grown domestic cat on having his fur smoothed the right way by a skillful hand.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
I won't say, the more intellect, the less capacity for loving; for that would do wrong to the understanding and reason;—but, on the other hand, that the brain often runs away with the heart's best blood, which gives the world a few pages of wisdom or sentiment or poetry, instead of making one other heart happy, I have no question.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Dream on! Though Heaven may woo our open eyes,
Through their closed lids we look on fairer skies;
Truth is for other worlds, and hope for this;
The cheating future lends the present's bliss;
Life is a running shade, with fettered hands,
That chases phantoms over shifting sands;
Death a still spectre on a marble seat,
With ever clutching palms and shackled feet;
The airy shapes that mock life's slender chain,
The flying joys he strives to clasp in vain,
Death only grasps; to live is to pursue, —
Dream on! there 's nothing but illusion true!

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Thine eye was on the censer,
And not the hand that bore it.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Don't ever think the poetry is dead in an old man because his forehead is wrinkled, or that his manhood has left him when his hand trembles! If they ever were there, they are there still!

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Wake in our breast the living fires,
The holy faith that warmed our sires;
Thy hand hath made our nation free;
To die for her is serving Thee.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.