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The thing I want to do is put as many new ideas into the law as I can, to show how particular solutions involve general theory, and to do it with style. I should like to be admitted to be the greatest jurist in the world.

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.
World
Greatest
Jurists
Law
Admitted
Show
Involve
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Solutions
Ideas
General
Many
Theory
Thing
Style
Like
Particular
Jurist

More quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

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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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Society is always trying in some way to grind us down to a single flat surface.
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Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it.
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Men are tattooed with their special beliefs like so many South Sea Islanders but a real human heart with divine love in it beats with the same glow under all the patterns of all earth's thousand tribes.
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To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.
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Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.
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This is a court of law, not a court of justice.
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Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold But friendship is the rose, with sweets in every fold.
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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 man of action has the present, but the thinker controls the future.
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Apologizing - a very desperate habit - one that is rarely cured. Apology is only egotism wrong side out.
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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.
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The worst of a modern stylish mansion is that it has no place for ghosts.
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A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command the latter.
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Our test of truth is a reference to either a present or imagined future majority in favour of our view.
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Even for practical purposes theory generally turns out the most important thing in the end.
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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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The root of joy, as of duty, is to put all one's powers towards some great end.
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You hear that boy laughing?you think he's all fun But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all.
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In my opinion, economists and sociologists are the people to whom we ought to turn more than we do for instruction in the grounds and foundations of all rational decisions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.