Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932, and as Acting Chief Justice of the United States January–February 1930. Noted for his long service, his concise and pithy opinions and his deference to the decisions of elected legislatures, he is one of the most widely cited United States Supreme Court justices in history, particularly for his "clear and present danger" opinion for a...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJudge
Date of Birth8 March 1841
CountryUnited States of America
Research and writing are lonely occupations. It is easy to become discouraged in solitary confinement.
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.
Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.
For him in vain the envious seasons roll Who bears eternal summer in his soul.
Young men know the rules, but old men know the exceptions.
If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I wouldn't pass it around. Wouldn't be doing anybody a favor. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't say embrace trouble. That's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say, meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it.
A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure.
I confess that altruistic and cynically selfish talk seem to me about equally unreal. With all humility, I think whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, infinitely more important than the vain attempt to love one's neighbor as one's self. If you want to hit a bird on the wing you must have all your will in focus, you must not be thinking about yourself, and equally, you must not be thinking about your neighbor; you must be living with your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird on the wing.
There is no time like the old time, when you and I were young!
People talk fundamentals and superlatives and then make some changes of detail.
The man of action has the present, but the thinker controls the future.
History has to be rewritten because history is the selection of those threads of causes or antecedents that we are interested in.
I have always sought to guide the future-but it is very lonely sometimes trying to play God.
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.