A collection of quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr on mind, enemies, friends, poems, ideas, books, belief, faith, life, aging, sanity, reading and evolution.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. was an American polymath, poet and writer. He is regarded as one of the finest writers of his era by his contemporaries. Holmes attended the Phillip Academy and then went on to study at the prestigious Harvard University, from where he earned his degree in 1829. Later, he decided to study law but changed his mind and instead acquired his MD from Harvard Medical School. Holmes had been a poet from an early age and some of his better known works include ‘Poems’, ‘Songs in Many Keys’, ‘The Chambered Nautilus’, ‘The Deacon’s Masterpiece’ and ‘Old Ironsides’ among others. He had also written prose and some of the more important among them include ‘Over the Teacups’, ‘The Professor at the Breakfast Table’, ‘The Poet at the Breakfast Table’ and the path breaking ‘The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table’. Some of his noted novels include ‘A Moral Antipathy’, ‘Elsie Venner’ and ‘The Guardian Angel’. Holmes was also a teacher at the Dartmouth Medical School and later taught at Harvard Medical School as well. Holmes was without doubt one of the most brilliant men of his era. We bring to you a treasure trove of quotes that have been excerpted from Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr’s novels, books and writings. Read on to explore a compilation of some of the best known quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr, covering various aspects of life.
What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the feeling that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only long enough for him to attempt to read a hundred?
The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.
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.
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?
For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have.
Why can’t somebody give us a list of things everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of the things that everybody says but nobody thinks?
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a
rose by and by. Life is like that - one stitch at a time taken patiently
and the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery.
It is a good plan to have a book with you in all places and at all times. If you are presently without, hurry without delay to the nearest shop and buy one of mine.
Man is born a predestined idealist, for he is born to act. To act is to affirm the worth of an end, and to persist in affirming the worth of an end is to make an ideal.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Have faith and pursue the unknown end.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Yet in opinions look not always back,--
Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track;
Leave what you've done for what you have to do;
Don't be "consistent," but be simply true.
Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse. One comfort we have - Cincinnati sounds worse.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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.
