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)
“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)
“Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
““A man,” said Oliver Cromwell, “never rises so high as when he knows not whither he is going.” Dreams and drunkenness, the use of opium and alcohol are the semblance and counterfeit of this oracular genius, and hence their dangerous attraction for men. For the like reason they ask the aid of wild passions, as in gaming and war, to ape in some manner these flames and generosities of the heart.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Why can’t somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)