Oliver Wendell Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes was the name of two prominent men, father and son:...
amuse battered boys conversation people puns railroad sake themselves train trick upset
People who make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children, but their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake of a battered witticism.
conversation dreadful pathway stick
And when you stick on conversation's burrs, don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.
cheerful far hopeful
To be 70 years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be 40 years old.
cheerful forty hopeful seventy
To be seventy years young is sometimes for more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.
beware hope human
Beware how you take away hope from any human being.
achievement attempt bird eye hand hit humility infinitely living love neighbor thinking thy vain
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 in your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird on the wing.
life positive wisdom
It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
life faith insightful
It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.
expectation large neighbors reason suspect true
Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our father's have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a large part than what we suspect of what we think.
chips contrived critics
Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics of the chips that were left.
banks customers keeps lending minutes miser wants whose
Old time, in whose banks we deposit our notes, Is a miser who always wants guineas for groats; He keeps all his customers still in arrears By lending them minutes and charging them years
men revolutions-and-revolutionaries
Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles.
bundle great life
Life is a great bundle of little things
action judged life man passion peril required share
Life is action and passion; therefore, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of the time, at peril of being judged not to have lived.