Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

    People who make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children, but their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake of a battered witticism.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    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)

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

    And he had an ethical bypass at birth.
    Stanley Weiser, U.S. screenwriter, and Oliver Stone. Marvin (John C. McGinley)

    Writing or printing is like shooting with a rifle; you may hit your reader’s mind, or miss it;Mbut talking is like playing at a mark with the pipe of an engine; if it is within reach, and you have time enough, you can’t help hitting it.
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)