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
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.
The individual will always be a minority. If a man is in a minority of one, we lock him up.
The ideas of the classics, so far as living, are our commonplaces. It is the modern books that give us the latest and most profound conceptions. It seems to me rather a lazy makeshift to mumble over the familiar.
Who does not feel that Nansen's account of his search for the Pole rather loses than gains in ideal satisfaction by the pretense of a few trifling acquisitions for science?
War? War is an organized bore.
For my part I think it is a less evil that some criminals should escape, than that the government should play an ignoble part.
Lord, bid war's trumpet cease; Fold the whole earth in peace.
It takes me several days, after I get back to Boston, to realize that the reference "the president" refers to the president of Harvard and not to a minor official in Washington.
There is nothing like the dead cold hand of the past to take down our tumid egotism and lead us into the solemn flow of the life of our race.
The preacher's garment is cut according to the pattern of that of the hearers, for the most part.
I should like to see any kind of man, distinguishable from a gorilla, that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of.
Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.
The very minute a thought is threatened with publicity it seems to shrink towards mediocrity.
Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly an overestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from our generic humanity.