Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

    Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935)

    Speak clearly, if you speak at all;
    Carve every word before you let it fall.
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    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)

    The King [Charles II] after the Restoration accused the poet, Edmund Waller, of having made finer verses in praise of Oliver Cromwell than of himself; to which he agreed, saying, that Fiction was the soul of Poetry.
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

    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)