Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

    Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    —First a shiver, and then a thrill,
    Then something decidedly like a spill,—
    And the parson was sitting up on a rock,
    At half-past nine by the meet’n’-house clock,—
    Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!
    MWhat do you think the parson found,
    When he got up and stared around?
    The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
    As if it had been to the mill and ground!
    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)

    Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left.
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)