Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

    The freeman, casting with unpurchased hand
    The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    And when you stick on conversation’s burrs,
    Don’t strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    I have seen in this revolution a circular motion of the sovereign power through two usurpers, father and son, to the late King to this his son. For ... it moved from King Charles I to the Long Parliament; from thence to the Rump; from the Rump to Oliver Cromwell; and then back again from Richard Cromwell to the Rump; then to the Long Parliament; and thence to King Charles, where long may it remain.
    Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)

    Year after year beheld the silent toil
    That spread his lustrous coil;
    Still as the spiral grew,
    He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
    Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
    Built up its idle door,
    Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)