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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.
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.
Force
Domination
Seems
Pigs
Every
Check
Checks
Impulse
Morality
Ultimate
Trough
Feet
Politeness
More quotes by 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.
To us who remain behind is left this day of memories. Every year--in the full tide of spring, at the height of the symphony of flowers and love and life--there comes a pause, and through the silence we hear the lonely pipe of death.
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Any tax is a discouragement and therefore a regulation so far as it goes.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Leisure only means a chance to do other jobs that demand attention.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
For him in vain the envious seasons roll Who bears eternal summer in his soul.
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You make me chuckle when you say that you are no longer young, that you have turned twenty-four. A man is or may be young to after sixty, and not old before eighty.
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To rest upon a formula is a slumber that, prolonged, means death.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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.
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Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.
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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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There was never an idea started that woke up men out of their stupid indifference but its originator was spoken of as a crank.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Beware of making your moral staple consist of the negative virtues.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The mark of a civilized man is his willingness to re-examine his most cherished beliefs.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
[The Constitution] is an experiment as all life is an experiment.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The man of action has the present, but the thinker controls the future.
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As for the excellent little wretches who grow up in what they are taught, with never a scruple or a query, ... they signify nothing in the intellectual life of the race.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
