Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Quotes

My experience with public libraries is that the first volume of the book I inquire for is out, unless I happen to want the second, when that is out.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Every library should try to complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
I hate paying taxes. But I love the civilization they give me
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
When men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe... that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas-- that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment. As all life is an experiment. Every year if not every day we wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
The Last LeafI saw him once before,As he passed by the door,And againThe pavement stones resound,As he totters o'er the groundWith his cane.They say that in his prime,Ere the pruning-knife of TimeCut him down,Not a better man was foundBy the Crier on his roundThrough the town.But now he walks the streets,And looks at all he meetsSad and wan,And he shakes his feeble head,That it seems as if he said,"They are gone."The mossy marbles restOn the lips that he has prestIn their bloom,And the names he loved to hearHave been carved for many a yearOn the tomb.My grandmamma has saidPoor old lady, she is deadLong agoThat he had a Roman nose,And his cheek was like a roseIn the snow;But now his nose is thin,And it rests upon his chinLike a staff,And a crook is in his back,And a melancholy crackIn his laugh.I know it is a sinFor me to sit and grinAt him here;But the old three-cornered hat,And the breeches, and all that,Are so queer!And if I should live to beThe last leaf upon the treeIn the spring,Let them smile, as I do now,At the old forsaken boughWhere I cling.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Trouble makes us one with every human being in the world - and unless we touch others, we're out of touch with life.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
A man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant things from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell them.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
The books we read should be chosen with great care, that they may be, as an Egyptian king wrote over his library,'The medicines of the soul.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the feeling that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only long enough for him to attempt to read a hundred?
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Science is the topography of ignorance.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Science is the topography of ignorance.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Beware how you take away hope from another human being
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
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?
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
There's nothing that keeps its youth, so far as I know, but a tree and truth.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts.
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.
It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.