Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. quotes - page 2

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. (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.)
The Amen of nature is always a flower. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Don't be 'consistent', but be simply true. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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? View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
The mind of a bigot to the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it contracts. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Do not be bullied out of your common sense by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Simple people... are very quick to see the live facts which are going on about them. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time. (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.)
Fresh air is good if you do not take too much of it; most of the achievements and pleasures of life are in bad air. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Why can't somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks? View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else - very rarely to those who say to themselves, 'Go to, now, let us be a celebrated individual!'. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
I hate facts. I always say the chief end of man is to form general propositions - adding that no general proposition is worth a damn. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
People who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be 'consistent'. View quote
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. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Most people are willing to take the Sermon on the Mount as a flag to sail under, but few will use it as a rudder by which to steer. (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.)
Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Stupidity often saves a man from going mad. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way - and the fools know it. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Leverage is everything-don't begin to pry until you've got the long arm on your side. View quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.