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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.
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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.
Worked
Frame
General
Formulas
Worth
Chief
Ends
Chiefs
Men
Fundamental
Damn
Proposition
Fundamentals
Propositions
Dare
Formula
More quotes by 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.
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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.
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Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.
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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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A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.
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A good soldier, like a good horse, cannot be of a bad color.
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Most people have died before they expire died to all earthly longings, so that the last breath is only, as it were, the locking of the door of the already deserted mansion.
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The mark of a civilized man is his willingness to re-examine his most cherished beliefs.
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The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.
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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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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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People talk fundamentals and superlatives and then make some changes of detail.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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.
It seems to me that at this time we need education in the obvious more than investigation of the obscure.
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Life is a fatal complaint, and an eminently contagious one.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Poverty comes pleading not for charity, for the most part, but imploring us to find a purchaser for its unmarketable wares.
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Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children.
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Taxes are what we pay for civilized society
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I despise making the most of one's time. Half of the pleasures of life consist of the opportunities one has neglected.
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Men are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before they always did, they always will and if you don't make it of wood, you must make it of words.
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