Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

    Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
    I watched that wretched man,
    And since, I never dare to write
    As funny as I can.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left.
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    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)

    All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called “facts.” They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain. Who does not know fellows that always have an ill-conditioned fact or two that they lead after them into decent company like so many bull-dogs, ready to let them slip at every ingenious suggestion, or convenient generalization, or pleasant fancy? I allow no “facts” at this table.
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)