Oliver Wendell Holmes

Famous quotes containing the words oliver wendell holmes, wendell holmes, oliver wendell, oliver, wendell and/or holmes:

    A great calamity ... is as old as the trilobites an hour after it has happened.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    the hatchlings wake in the swaying branches,
    in the silver baskets,
    and love the world.
    Is it necessary to say any more?
    Have you heard them singing in the wind, above the final fields?
    Have you ever been so happy in your life?
    —Mary Oliver (b. 1935)

    And silence, like a poultice, comes
    To heal the blows of sound.
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    “No, no; the real name,” said Holmes sweetly. “It is always awkward doing business with an alias.”
    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)