Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Quotes - Page 6

The only condition of peace in this world is to have no ideas, or, at least not to express them.

Life is a fatal complaint, and an eminently contagious one.

There is no time like the old time, when you and I were young!

There is nothing earthly that lasts so well, as money. A man's learning dies with him, as does his virtues fade out of remembrance, but the dividends on the stocks he bequeaths to his children live and keep his memory green.

It is mere childishness to expect men to believe as their fathers did; that is, if they have any minds of their own. The world is a whole generation older and wiser than when the father was of his son's age.

Taxes are what we pay for civilized society

A man's opinions are generally of much more value than his arguments.

Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than what we suspect of what we think.

One of the eternal conflicts out of which life is made up is that between the effort of every man to get the most he can for his services, and that of society, disguised under the name of capital, to get his services for the least possible return.

When a man holds his tongue it does not signify much. But when a woman dispenses with the office of the mighty member, when she sheathed her natural weapon at a trying moment, it means that she trusts to still more formidable enginery; to tears it may be, a solvent more powerful than that with which Hannibal softened the alpine rocks.

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

Systems die; instincts remain.

Modesty and reverence are no less virtues of freemen than the democratic feeling which will submit neither to arrogance nor to servility.

I should like to see any kind of man, distinguishable from a gorilla, that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of.

To be civilized is to be potentially master of all possible ideas, and that means that one has got beyond being shocked, although one preserves one's own moral aesthetic preferences.

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

Science ... in other words, knowledge-is not the enemy of religion; for, if so, then religion would mean ignorance. But it is often the antagonist of school-divinity.

Research and writing are lonely occupations. It is easy to become discouraged in solitary confinement.

The preacher's garment is cut according to the pattern of that of the hearers, for the most part.

The foliage has been losing its freshness through the month of August, and here and there a yellow leaf shows itself like the first gray hair amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many.

The worst of a modern stylish mansion is that it has no place for ghosts.

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

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.

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

The history of what the law has been is necessary to the knowledge of what the law is.