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For my part I think it is a less evil that some criminals should escape, than that the government should play an ignoble part.
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.
Escape
Less
Evil
Part
Government
Play
Think
Ignoble
Thinking
Criminals
More quotes by 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.
There is one gratification an old author can afford a certain class of critics that namely, of comparing him as he is with what he was. It is a pleasure to mediocrity to have its superiors brought within range.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Leisure only means a chance to do other jobs that demand attention.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Men must turn square corners when they deal with the Government.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Be willing to commit yourself to a course, perhaps a long and hard one, without being able to foresee exactly where you will come out.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
No generalization is wholly true—not even this one.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
To rest upon a formula is a slumber that, prolonged, means death.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Beware of making your moral staple consist of the negative virtues.
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.
Life is a fatal complaint, and an eminently contagious one.
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.
There is in all men a demand for the superlative, so much so that the poor devil that has no other way of reaching it attains it by getting drunk.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Science is the topography of ignorance. From a few elevated points we triangulate vast spaces, inclosing infinite unknown details. We cast the lead, and draw up a little sand from abysses we may never reach with our dredges.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
I have always sought to guide the future-but it is very lonely sometimes trying to play God.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Where we stand is not as important as the direction in which we are moving.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Old age is like an opium dream. Nothing seems real except the unreal.
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.
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.
