There are many things which we can afford to forget which it is yet well to learn.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
To us who remain behind is left this day of memories. Every year--in the full tide of spring, at the height of the symphony of flowers and love and life--there comes a pause, and through the silence we hear the lonely pipe of death.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the transient nature of life and the poignant memories left behind.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. captures the essence of life's fleeting moments, highlighting how, amidst the beauty and vibrancy of spring, there is an underlying acknowledgment of mortality. The metaphor of the 'lonely pipe of death' serves as a reminder of the inevitable absence we must confront as we cherish memories of those who have passed, emphasizing the bittersweet blend of life and loss.
Themes
MemoriesLifeDeathSpringLossBeauty
In practice
Example use cases
During a memorial service, this quote could resonate with those reflecting on the lives of loved ones.
More from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
All quotes →On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself, as against the saints who deny it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
If you don't know what you want, you will probably never get it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
Why should you row a boat race? Why endure the long months of pain in preparation for a fierce half hour that will leave you all but dead? Does anyone ask the question? Is there anyone who would not go through all the costs, and more, for the moment when anguish breaks into triumph or even for the glory of having nobly lost? Is life less than a boat race? If a man will give the blood in his body to win the one, will he spend all the might of his soul to prevail in the other?
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts, but learning how to make facts live.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
Beware how you take away hope from another human being.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
Similar quotes
If we use goods made from raw materials that are obtained from a poor country without the proceeds being used to benefit the people of that country, we become complicit in a particularly iniquitous form of grand larceny.
Peter SingerRead
The ideal of a single civilization for everyone, implicit in the cult of progress and technique, impoverishes and mutilates us
Octavio PazRead
Whatever we have done with our lives makes us what we are when we die. And everything, absolutely everything, counts.
Sogyal RinpocheRead
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.
TacitusRead
Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.
Thomas JeffersonRead
What is it that you contain? The Dead. Time. Light patterns of millennia. The expanding universe opening in your gut. Are your twenty-three feet of intestines loaded with stars?
Jeanette WintersonRead