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Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Quotes
1841–1935 United States
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (8 March 1841 – 6 March 1935) was an American jurist and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932; he was often called "The Great Dissenter", and was the son of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
United States Judges Lawyers Non-fiction authors Philosophers Also known as: Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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97 quotes
Philosophy may have gained by the attempts in recent years to look through the fiction to the fact and to generalize corporations, partnerships, and other groups into a single conception. But to generalize is to omit, and, in this instance, to omit one characteristic of the complete corporation, as called into being under modern statutes, that is most important in business and law.
I do not think the United States would come to an end if we lost our power to declare an Act of Congress void. I do think the Union would be imperiled if we could not make that declaration as to the laws of the several States.
Law and the Court (1913)
Some of her answers might excite popular prejudice, but 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.
The liberty of the citizen to do as he likes so long as he does not interfere with the liberty of others to do the same, which has been a shibboleth for some well known writers, is interfered with by school laws, by the Post Office, by every state or municipal institution which takes his money for purposes thought desirable, whether he likes it or not.
Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905)
Beware how you take away hope from any human being.
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Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins.
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Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.
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Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children.
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The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour upon it, the closer it contracts.
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The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.
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There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise.
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A man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.
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Old age is always fifteen years older than I am.
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To be 70 years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be 40 years old.
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A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he was born.
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Keep government poor and remain free.
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Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., in "The Professor at the Breakfast-Table" in The Atlantic Monthly Vol. 4 (1859), p. 505.
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