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I hate facts. I always say the chief end of man is to form general propositions - adding that no general proposition is worth a damn.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

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Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Age: 85 †
Born: 1809
Born: August 29
Died: 1894
Died: October 7
Medical Writer
Novelist
Physician
Physician Writer
Poet
University Teacher
Cambridge
Massachusetts
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Sr.
Facts
Propositions
Ends
Chief
Form
Chiefs
Always
Damn
Men
General
Worth
Proposition
Hate
Complacency
Science
Adding

More quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

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Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.
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Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays the pleasing game of interchanging praise.
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Don't be 'consistent,' but be simply true.
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Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become.
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A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
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Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern it will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that - one stitch at a time taken patiently and the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery.
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Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse. One comfort we have - Cincinnati sounds worse.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
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Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light.
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No families take so little medicine as those of doctors, except those of apothecaries.
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There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise.
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Man is born a predestined idealist, for he is born to act. To act is to affirm the worth of an end, and to persist in affirming the worth of an end is to make an ideal.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
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Cupid the little greatest enemy.
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The sea drowns out humanity and time. It has no sympathy with either, for it belongs to eternity and of that it sings its monotonous song forever and ever.
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Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
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We call those poets who are first to mark, Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn, Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark, While others only note that day is gone.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
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A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
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Death tugs at my ear and says, 'Live. I am coming.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
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Beware how you take away hope from any human being.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
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People who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be 'consistent'.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
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To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.