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 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.
Blood is a destiny. One's genius descends in the stream from long lines of ancestry.
The language of judicial decision is mainly the language of logic. And the logical method and form flatter that longing for certainty and for repose which is in every human mind. But certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.
I think it not improbable that man, like the grub that prepares a chamber for the winged thing it never has seen but is to be - that man may have cosmic destinies that he does not understand.
The rules of evidence in the main are based on experience, logic, and common sense, less hampered by history than some parts of the substantive law.
The great act of faith is when a man decides he is not God.
A new untruth is better than an old truth.
Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.
The rule of joy and the law of duty seem to me all one.
The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts, but learning how to make facts live.
It is very lonely sometimes, trying to play God.
Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so.
A man is usually more careful of his money than of his principles.