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The joy of life is to put out one's power in some natural and useful or harmless way. There is no other. And the real misery is not to do this.
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.
Joy
Justice
Natural
Power
Real
Harmless
Way
Useful
Life
Diversity
Misery
More quotes by 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.
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.
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.
We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The mode by which the inevitable comes to pass is effort.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
For him in vain the envious seasons roll Who bears eternal summer in his soul.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith.
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.
The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Men are tattooed with their special beliefs like so many South Sea Islanders but a real human heart with divine love in it beats with the same glow under all the patterns of all earth's thousand tribes.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Young men know the rules, but old men know the exceptions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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.
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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Research and writing are lonely occupations. It is easy to become discouraged in solitary confinement.
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.
Men must turn square corners when they deal with the Government.
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.
Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold But friendship is the rose, with sweets in every fold.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.