Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Quotes

1809–1894 United States

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (29 August 1809 – 8 October 1894) was an American physician, writer, poet, and the father of US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

United States
19th-century poets
Essayists
Novelists
Physicians

Also known as: Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Sr., Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Random Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. quote

171 quotes

When lawyers take what they would give
And doctors give what they would take.

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

O hearts that break and give no sign
Save whitening lip and fading tresses!

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold;
But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.

You may set it down as a truth which admits of few exceptions, that those who ask your opinion really want your praise, and will be contented with nothing less.

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

The freeman casting with unpurchased hand
The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.

Of course everybody likes and respects self-made men. It is a great deal better to be made in that way than not to be made at all.

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

Be polite and generous, but don't undervalue yourself. You will be useful, at any rate; you may just as well be happy, while you are about it.

Elsie Venner (1859)

For there we loved, and where we love is home,
Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts,
Though o'er us shine the jasper-lighted dome:—
The chain may lengthen, but it never parts!

The Poet at the Breakfast Table (1872)

Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall;
A mother's secret hope outlives them all.

Did I not say to you a little while ago that the universe swam in an ocean of similitudes and analogies?

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

And when you stick on conversation’s burrs,
Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.

Urania: A Rhymed Lesson (1846)

And, when you stick on conversation's burs,
Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.

Faith loves to lean on time's destroying arm,
And age, like distance, lends a double charm.

Urania: A Rhymed Lesson (1846)

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathéd horn.

The brightest blades grow dim with rust,
The fairest meadow white with snow.

There are a good many real miseries in life that we cannot help smiling at, but they are the smiles that make wrinkles and not dimples.

The Poet at the Breakfast Table (1872)

Thine eye was on the censer,
And not the hand that bore it.

Thou say’st an undisputed thing
In such a solemn way.

What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left!

The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)

Then there is that glorious Epicurean paradox, uttered by my friend, the Historian, in one of his flashing moments: "Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries."

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.