Famous quotes containing the words oliver wendell holmes, wendell holmes, oliver wendell, oliver and/or wendell:
“Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“Speak clearly, if you speak at all;
Carve every word before you let it fall.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“A great calamity ... is as old as the trilobites an hour after it has happened.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“I have this very moment finished reading a novel called The Vicar of Wakefield [by Oliver Goldsmith].... It appears to me, to be impossible any person could read this book through with a dry eye and yet, I don’t much like it.... There is but very little story, the plot is thin, the incidents very rare, the sentiments uncommon, the vicar is contented, humble, pious, virtuous—but upon the whole the book has not at all satisfied my expectations.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“What a comfort a dull but kindly person is, to be sure, at times! A ground-glass shade over a gas-lamp does not bring more solace to our dazzled eyes than such a one to our minds.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)