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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.
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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.
Drunk
Devil
Demand
Getting
Superlative
Poor
Superlatives
Much
Attains
Way
Drunkenness
Men
Reaching
More quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The great end of being is to harmonize man with the order of things, and the church has been a good pitch-pipe, and may be so still.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.
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.
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.
The only prize much cared for by the powerful is power. The prize of the general is not a bigger tent, but command.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The life of the law has not been logic it has been experience.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than what we suspect of what we think.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
It is perfectly easy to be original by violating the laws of decency and the canons of good taste.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith.
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.
The root of joy, as of duty, is to put all one's powers towards some great end.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The man of action has the present, but the thinker controls the future.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
No generalization is wholly true—not even this one.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Carve every word before you let it fall.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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.
Young feller, you will never appreciate the potentialities of the English language until you have heard a Southern mule driver search the soul of a mule.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
History has to be rewritten because history is the selection of those threads of causes or antecedents that we are interested in.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
