Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

Quotes

• There are one-story intellects, two-story intellects, and three-story intellects with skylights. All fact collectors with no aim beyond their facts are one-story men. Two-story men compare reason and generalize, using labors of the fact collectors as well as their own. Three-story men idealize, imagine, and predict. Their best illuminations come from above through the skylight.

• A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.

• A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.

• I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.

• Between two groups of men that want to make inconsistent kinds of worlds I see no remedy except force... It seems to me that every society rests on the death of men.

• When I think of talking, it is of course with a woman. For talking at its best being an inspiration, it wants a corresponding divine quality of receptiveness, and where will you find this but in a woman?

• Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them all.

• Beat a man with the strength of you argument, not with the strength of your arm.

• The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.

• A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.

• A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.

• A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.

• Between two groups of people who want to make inconsistent kinds of worlds, I see no remedy but force.

• Beware how you take away hope from another human being.

• Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse. One comfort we have: Cincinnati sounds worse.

• Death tugs at my ear and says: "Live, I am coming."

• Don't be "consistent" but be simply true.

• Eloquence may set fire to reason.

• Happiness consists in activity. It is running stream, not a stagnant pool.

• I don't generally feel anything until noon, then it's time for my nap.