Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

    “He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
    The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees;
    The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
    But lasts like iron for things like these;
    The hubs of logs from the “Settler’s ellum,”—
    Last of its timber,—they couldn’t sell ‘em,”
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    “And silence, like a poultice, comes
    To heal the blows of sound.”
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    “People who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be “consistent.””
    —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)