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The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Age: 93 †
Born: 1841
Born: March 8
Died: 1935
Died: March 6
Judge
Jurist
Lawyer
Philosopher
Politician
University Teacher
Boston
Massachusetts
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Oliver W. Holmes
Jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr
Holmes
Oliver Wendell
Jr.
Oliver Wendell
Jr. Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Jr
Oliver Holmes
Jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Jr.
Circumstances
Depends
Upon
Character
Done
Every
Life
More quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
For him in vain the envious seasons roll Who bears eternal summer in his soul.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Our test of truth is a reference to either a present or imagined future majority in favour of our view.
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There is no friend like the old friend, who has shared our morning days, No greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise: Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.
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My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The joy of life is to put out one's power in some natural and useful or harmless way. There is no other. And the real misery is not to do this.
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Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The language of judicial decision is mainly the language of logic. And the logical method and form flatter that longing for certainty and for repose which is in every human mind. But certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Men are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before they always did, they always will and if you don't make it of wood, you must make it of words.
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Longevity is having a chronic disease - and taking care of it.
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I know of no teachers so powerful and persuasive as the little army of specialists. They carry no banners, they beat no drums but where they are men learn that bustle and push are not the equals of quiet genius and serene mastery.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky, but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that can be identified although some decisions with which I have disagreed seem to me to have forgotten the fact.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Society is always trying in some way to grind us down to a single flat surface.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The world has its fling at lawyers sometimes, but its very denial is an admission. It feels, what I believe to be the truth, that of all secular professions this has the highest standards.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Every man is an omnibus in which his ancestors ride.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
No generalization is wholly true—not even this one.
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Any tax is a discouragement and therefore a regulation so far as it goes.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
We must think things not words, or at least we must constantly translate our words into the facts for which they stand, if we are to keep to the real and the true.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
