Oliver Wendell Holmes

Oliver Wendell Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes was the name of two prominent men, father and son:...
angel brains closes gives hands key life mind seventy winds year
Our brains our seventy year clocks, the angel of life winds them up once and for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the hands of the angel of resurrection.
bigot light mind pupil shine
The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will contract.
accurate insanity logic mind
Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtaxed.
allow beasts brute commonly company convenient decent fact facts fellows generous horror ingenious lead minds pleasant ready slip
All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called ''facts.'' They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain. Who does not know fellows that always have an ill-conditioned fact or two that they lead after them into decent company like so many bull-dogs, ready to let them slip at every ingenious suggestion, or convenient generalization, or pleasant fancy? I allow no ''facts'' at this table.
ideas mind original stretched
A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions.
love insanity mind
Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.
men ideas mind
Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.
aim
The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may thing what we like and say what we think.
fools men wise
Controversy equalizes fools and wise men - and the fools know it
conversation dreadful pathway stick
And when you stick on conversation's burrs, don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.
honest telling truth
Pretty much all the honest truth telling in the world is done by children.
awful begins bid brothers chorus dead death destinies glory good great joy lent life note orchestra passion powers seen sound unseen youth
Our dead brothers still live for us and bid us think of life, not death / of life to which in their youth they lent the passion and glory of Spring. As I listen, the great chorus of life and joy begins again, and amid the awful orchestra of seen and unseen powers and destinies of good and evil, our trumpets, sound once more a note of daring, hope, and will.
ahead divided humankind people sit
People can be divided into two classes: those who go ahead and do something, and those who sit still and inquire, why wasn't it done the other way?
beware hope human
Beware how you take away hope from any human being.