52 Quotes By Oliver Wendell Holmes


Old age is fifteen years older than I am.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on age

Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on art

Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on beauty

The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on best

I won't accept anything less than the best a player's capable of doing... and he has the right to expect the best that I can do for him and the team!
Oliver Wendell Holmes on best

Have the courage to act instead of react.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on courage

A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on death

The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts but learning how to make facts live.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on education

It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on faith

If I were dying my last words would be: Have faith and pursue the unknown end.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on faith

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on freedom

But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on friendship

Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on friendship

Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on friendship

Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays the pleasing game of interchanging praise.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on friendship

Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on future

Fresh air is good if you do not take too much of it most of the achievements and pleasures of life are in bad air.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on good

The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on great

The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on great

Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.
Oliver Wendell Holmes on happiness