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Certitude is not the test of certainty.
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.
Certainty
Test
Tests
Learning
Certitude
More quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Beware of making your moral staple consist of the negative virtues.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The great end of being is to harmonize man with the order of things, and the church has been a good pitch-pipe, and may be so still.
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We are all sentenced to capital punishment for the crime of living, and though the condemned cell of our earthly existence is but a narrow and bare dwelling-place, we have adjusted ourselves to it, and made it tolerably comfortable for the little while we are to be confined in it.
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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.
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Society is always trying in some way to grind us down to a single flat surface.
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.
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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.
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To be master of any branch of knowledge, you must master those which lie next to it, and thus to know anything you must know all.
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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.
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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.
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To brag little, to lose well, / To crow gently if in luck, / To pay up, to own up, / To shut up if beaten, / Are the virtues of a sportingman.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The worst of a modern stylish mansion is that it has no place for ghosts.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The mark of a civilized man is his willingness to re-examine his most cherished beliefs.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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.
A man's opinions are generally of much more value than his arguments.
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The very minute a thought is threatened with publicity it seems to shrink towards mediocrity.
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.
Young men know the rules, but old men know the exceptions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
[The Constitution] is an experiment as all life is an experiment.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
It seems to me that at this time we need education in the obvious more than investigation of the obscure.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
