Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

    —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)

    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)

    Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide—that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life—are alike forbidden.
    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)

    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)

    “No, no; the real name,” said Holmes sweetly. “It is always awkward doing business with an alias.”
    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)