Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

    A great calamity ... is as old as the trilobites an hour after it has happened.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    It was a tall young oysterman lived by the river-side,
    His shop was just upon the bank, his boat was on the tide;
    The daughter of a fisherman, that was so straight and slim,
    Lived over on the other bank, right opposite to him.
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    When it’s over I don’t want to wonder
    if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
    I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
    or full of argument.
    I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
    —Mary Oliver (b. 1935)

    Unpretending mediocrity is good, and genius is glorious; but a weak flavor of genius in an essentially common person is detestable. It spoils the grand neutrality of a commonplace character, as the rinsings of an unwashed wine-glass spoil a draught of fair water.
    —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)