Quote

What we most want to ask of our Maker is an unfolding of the divine purpose in putting human beings into conditions in which such numbers of them would be sure to go wrong.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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.
Humans
Divine
Would
Numbers
Asks
Maker
Sure
Unfolding
Wrong
Makers
Purpose
Putting
Evil
Beings
Human
Conditions

More quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Image
I firmly believe that if the whole material medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be better for mankind-and all the worse for the fishes.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Image
Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays the pleasing game of interchanging praise.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Image
Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself stupidity often saves a man from going mad.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Image
But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Image
We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination no matter how utterly his reason may reject them...
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Image
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.
Image
A woman never forgets her sex. She would rather talk with a man than an angel, any day.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Image
Memory is a net: one that finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook, but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Image
People who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be 'consistent'.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Image
Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of the place it came from, and whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and color of its birthplace.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Image
Even a dog knows the difference between being kicked and being stumbled over.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Image
Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse. One comfort we have - Cincinnati sounds worse.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Image
Simple people... are very quick to see the live facts which are going on about them.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Image
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.
Image
Youth fades, love droops, the leaves of friendship fall A mother's secret hope outlives them all.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Image
Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Image
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.
Image
Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Image
Don't be 'consistent,' but be simply true.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Image
It is a good plan to have a book with you in all places and at all times. If you are presently without, hurry without delay to the nearest shop and buy one of mine.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.