Quote

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.

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.
Must
Kiss
Something
Woods
Make
Throw
Always
Kissing
Men
Fantasy
Words
Idolaters
Look
Hug
Looks
Wood

More quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

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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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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There is no friend like the old friend, who has shared our morning days, No greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise: Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.
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To know is not less than to feel.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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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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This is a court of law, not a court of justice.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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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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The world has its fling at lawyers sometimes, but its very denial is an admission. It feels, what I believe to be the truth, that of all secular professions this has the highest standards.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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The worst of a modern stylish mansion is that it has no place for ghosts.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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Certitude is not the test of certainty.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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Free competition is worth more to society than it costs.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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The life of the law has not been logic it has been experience.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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The individual will always be a minority. If a man is in a minority of one, we lock him up.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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In my opinion, economists and sociologists are the people to whom we ought to turn more than we do for instruction in the grounds and foundations of all rational decisions.
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The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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We expect more of ourselves than we have any right to.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.