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
To be civilized is to be potentially master of all possible ideas, and that means that one has got beyond being shocked, although one preserves one's own moral aesthetic preferences.
Our morality seems to be only a check on the ultimate domination of force, just as our politeness is a check on the impulse of every pig to put his feet in the trough.
Beware of making your moral staple consist of the negative virtues.
The law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life. Its history is the history of the moral development of the race.
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.
Man has will, but woman has her way.