Quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

About Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.:

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was an American physician, poet, professor, lecturer, and author based in Boston. A member of the Fireside Poets, his peers acclaimed him as one of the best writers of the day. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858). He was also an important medical reformer.
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Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think what we like and say what we think.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Don't be 'consistent', but be simply true.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Simple people... are very quick to see the live facts which are going on about them.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Every event that a man would master must be mounted on the run, and no man ever caught the reins of a thought except as it galloped past him.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Memory is a net: one that finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook, but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else - very rarely to those who say to themselves, 'Go to, now, let us be a celebrated individual!'.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Trouble makes us one with every human being in the world - and unless we touch others, we're out of touch with life.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

The books we read should be chosen with great care, that they may be, as an Egyptian king wrote over his library,'The medicines of the soul.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

I hate paying taxes. But I love the civilization they give me

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave y...

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Science is the topography of ignorance.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Author Bio

  • NameOliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
  • DescriptionPoet, essayist, physician
  • BornAugust 29, 1809
  • DiedOctober 7, 1894
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPoet; Author; Novelist