Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
I dare say that I have worked off my fundamental formula on you that the chief end of man is to frame general propositions and that no general proposition is worth a damn.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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.
Ends
Chiefs
Men
Fundamental
Damn
Proposition
Fundamentals
Propositions
Dare
Formula
Worked
Frame
General
Formulas
Worth
Chief
More quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The individual will always be a minority. If a man is in a minority of one, we lock him up.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The mark of a civilized man is his willingness to re-examine his most cherished beliefs.
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.
Go on, fair Science soon to thee Shall Nature yield her idle boast Her vulgar lingers formed a tree, But thou hast trained it to a post.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Young man, the secret of my success is that an early age I discovered that I was not God.
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.
Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.
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.
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.
Systems die instincts remain.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Free competition is worth more to society than it costs.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
A great man represents a great ganglion in the nerves of society, or to vary the figure, a strategic point in the campaign of history, and part of his greatness consists in his being there.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
But the moment you turn a corner you see another straight stretch ahead and there comes some further challenge to your ambition.
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.
It is very grand to die in harness, but it is very pleasant to have the tight straps unbuckled and the heavy collar lifted from the neck and shoulders.
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.
I have always sought to guide the future-but it is very lonely sometimes trying to play God.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
