Best 195 quotes of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. on MyQuotes

A good soldier, like a good horse, cannot be of a bad color.

A great man represents a great ganglion in the nerves of society, or to vary the figure, a strategic point in the campaign of history, and part of his greatness consists in his being there.

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.

And silence, like a poultice, comes To heal the blows of sound.

A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command the latter.

Any new formula which suddenly emerges in our consciousness has its roots in long trains of thought; it is virtually old when it first makes its appearance among the recognized growths of our intellect.

Any tax is a discouragement and therefore a regulation so far as it goes.

Anytime you see a Hungarian, kick him. He'll know why. Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.

A person of genius should marry a person of character.

Apologizing - a very desperate habit - one that is rarely cured. Apology is only egotism wrong side out.

A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure.

As for the excellent little wretches who grow up in what they are taught, with never a scruple or a query, ... they signify nothing in the intellectual life of the race.

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.

Between two groups of people who want to make inconsistent kinds of worlds, I see no remedy but force.

Beware of making your moral staple consist of the negative virtues.

Be willing to commit yourself to a course, perhaps a long and hard one, without being able to foresee exactly where you will come out.

Blood is a destiny. One's genius descends in the stream from long lines of ancestry.

But I have long thought that if you knew a column of advertisements by heart, you could achieve unexpected felicities with them. You can get a happy quotation anywhere if you have the eye.

But the moment you turn a corner you see another straight stretch ahead and there comes some further challenge to your ambition.

But the word "right" is one of the most deceptive of pitfalls; it is so easy to slip from a qualified meaning in the premise to an unqualified one in the conclusion. Most rights are qualified.

But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe...that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market... That at any rate is the theory of our constitution.

Carve every word before you let it fall.

Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.

Certitude is not the test of certainty.

Certitude leads to violence. This is a proposition that has an easy application and a difficult one. The easy application is to ideoologues, dogmatists, and bullies--people who think that their rigtness justifies them in imposing on anyone who does not happen to suscribe to their particular ideology, dogma or notion of turf. If the conviction of rightness is powerful enough, resistance to it will be met, sooner or later by force. There are people like this in every sphere of life, and it is natural to feel that the world would be a better place without them!

Deep-seated preferences cannot be argued about - you cannot argue a man into liking a glass of beer.

Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife.

Eloquence may set fire to reason.

Even for practical purposes theory generally turns out the most important thing in the end.

Even the wisest woman you talk to is ignorant of something you may know, but an elegant woman never forgets her elegance.

Every calling is great when greatly pursued.

Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief, and if believed it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it or some failure of energy stifles the movement at its birth. The only difference between the expression of an opinion and an incitement is the speaker's enthusiasm for the result.

Every man is an omnibus in which his ancestors ride.

Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.

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

Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else.

Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith.

For him in vain the envious seasons roll Who bears eternal summer in his soul.

Free competition is worth more to society than it costs.

From forty to fifty a man must move upward, or the natural falling off in the vigor of life will carry him rapidly downward.

General propositions do not decide concrete cases. The decision will depend on a judgment or intuition more subtle than any articulate major premise.

Go on, fair Science; soon to thee Shall Nature yield her idle boast; Her vulgar lingers formed a tree, But thou hast trained it to a post.

History has to be rewritten because history is the selection of those threads of causes or antecedents that we are interested in.

I despise making the most of one's time. Half of the pleasures of life consist of the opportunities one has neglected.

If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it around. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it.

If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I wouldn't pass it around. Wouldn't be doing anybody a favor. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't say embrace trouble. That's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say, meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it.

I find 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.

If I were dying, my last words would be: Have faith and pursue the unknown end.

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.

If wine tells truth - and so have said the wise, It makes me laugh to think how brandy lies!