Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

    “And if I should live to be
    The last leaf upon the tree
    In the spring,
    Let them smile, as I do now,
    At the old forsaken bough
    Where I cling.”
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    “Little-minded people’s thoughts move in such small circles that five minutes’ conversation gives you an arc long enough to determine their whole curve.”
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    “—First a shiver, and then a thrill,
    Then something decidedly like a spill,—
    And the parson was sitting up on a rock,
    At half-past nine by the meet’n’-house clock,—
    Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!
    MWhat do you think the parson found,
    When he got up and stared around?
    The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
    As if it had been to the mill and ground!”
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    ““A man,” said Oliver Cromwell, “never rises so high as when he knows not whither he is going.” Dreams and drunkenness, the use of opium and alcohol are the semblance and counterfeit of this oracular genius, and hence their dangerous attraction for men. For the like reason they ask the aid of wild passions, as in gaming and war, to ape in some manner these flames and generosities of the heart.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.”
    —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)