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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.
Upon
Character
Done
Every
Life
Circumstances
Depends
More quotes by 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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Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife.
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Carve every word before you let it fall.
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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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
To an imagination of any scope the most far reaching form of power is not money, it is the command of ideas
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.
No generalization is wholly true—not even this one.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The root of joy, as of duty, is to put all one's powers towards some great end.
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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.
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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.
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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Longevity is having a chronic disease - and taking care of it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Our morality seems to be only a check on the ultimate domination of force, just as our politeness is a check on the impulse of every pig to put his feet in the trough.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Leisure only means a chance to do other jobs that demand attention.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Old age is like an opium dream. Nothing seems real except the unreal.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Free competition is worth more to society than it costs.
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Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man. It involves the necessity for perpetual choice which is the kind of labor men have always dreaded.
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Every calling is great when greatly pursued.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command the latter.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
