Famous quotes containing the words oliver wendell holmes, wendell holmes, oliver wendell, oliver and/or wendell:
“And when you stick on conversation’s burrs,
Don’t strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.”
—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)
“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)
“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)
“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)