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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.

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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.
Facts
Sky
Disagreed
Seems
Forgotten
Brooding
Seem
Articulate
Decision
Identified
Law
Sovereignty
Common
Sovereign
Fact
Decisions
Omnipresence
Voice
Although
Quasi

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My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.
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Leisure only means a chance to do other jobs that demand attention.
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Taxes are what we pay for civilized society
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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.
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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.
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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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Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold But friendship is the rose, with sweets in every fold.
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Systems die instincts remain.
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Men, like peaches and pears, grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay.
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People talk fundamentals and superlatives and then make some changes of detail.
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Longevity is having a chronic disease - and taking care of it.
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Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly an overestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from our generic humanity.
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Even the wisest woman you talk to is ignorant of something you may know, but an elegant woman never forgets her elegance.
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The life of the law has not been logic it has been experience.
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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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Certitude is not the test of certainty.
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I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
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A good soldier, like a good horse, cannot be of a bad color.
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We must think things not words, or at least we must constantly translate our words into the facts for which they stand, if we are to keep to the real and the true.
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