Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

We call those poets who are first to mark, Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn, Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark, While others only note that day is gone.

Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.

The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think what we like and say what we think.

Don't you stay at home of evenings? Don't you love a cushioned seat in a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your feet?

Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.

Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that - one stitch at a time taken patiently and the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery.

Do not be bullied out of your common sense by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant.

Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else - very rarely to those who say to themselves, 'Go to, now, let us be a celebrated individual!'.

A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.

Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future.

Simple people... are very quick to see the live facts which are going on about them.

There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise.

I like children; I like 'em, and I respect 'em. Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by them.

A few can touch the magic string, and noisy fame is proud to win them: Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them!

We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them...

I hate facts. I always say the chief end of man is to form general propositions - adding that no general proposition is worth a damn.

Science is the topography of ignorance.

To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor.

I hate paying taxes. But I love the civilization they give me

Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become.

Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.