Famous quotes containing the words oliver wendell holmes, wendell holmes, oliver wendell, oliver and/or wendell:
“Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.”
—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)
“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)
“Alas for those two loving ones! she waked not from her swound,
And he was taken with the cramp, and in the waves was drowned;
But Fate has metamorphosed them, in pity of their woe,
And now they keep an oyster-shop for mermaids down below.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)