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Young feller, you will never appreciate the potentialities of the English language until you have heard a Southern mule driver search the soul of a mule.

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.
War
Driver
Young
Drivers
Soul
Southern
Never
Search
English
Feller
Appreciate
Mule
Heard
Potentialities
Language
Mules

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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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Apologizing - a very desperate habit - one that is rarely cured. Apology is only egotism wrong side out.
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Men, like peaches and pears, grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay.
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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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We expect more of ourselves than we have any right to.
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The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.
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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.
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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.
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To think great thoughts you must be heroes as well as idealists.
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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.
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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.
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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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Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used till they are seasoned.
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Nothing can be so perfect while we possess it as it will seem when remembered.
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The only prize much cared for by the powerful is power. The prize of the general is not a bigger tent, but command.
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If you can eat sawdust without butter, you can be a success in the law.
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Beware of making your moral staple consist of the negative virtues.
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Society is always trying in some way to grind us down to a single flat surface.
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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.
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