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| Oliver Wendell Holmes
A goose flies by a chart which the Royal Geographical Society could not mend. A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve. A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience. A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. Consciously or unconsciously we all strive to make the kind of a world we like. Do not be bullied out of your common sense by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant. 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. Don't you stay at home of evenings? Don you love a cushioned seat in a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your feet? Happiness consists in activity. It is running steam, not a stagnant pool. He has half the deed done who has made a beginning. Heredity: An omnibus in which all our ancestors ride, and every now and then, one of them puts his head out and embarasses us. I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived. 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! I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. It is faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes life worth looking at. Life is a fatal complaint, and an eminently contagious one. Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum. Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. Memory is a net: one that finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook, but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking. Old age is fifteen years older than I am. One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. People who make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children, but their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake of a battered witticism. Pretty much all the honest truthtelling there is in the world is done by children. Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor. Several years before birth, advertise for a couple of parents belonging to long-lived families. So far as I know, but a tree and truth. Stupidity often saves a man from going mad. Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body. The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books. The Amen of nature is always a flower. The man who is always worrying about whether or not his soul would be damned generally has a soul that isn't worth a damn. The minute a phrase, becomes current, it becomes an apology for not thinking accurately to the end of the sentence. The mode by which the inevitable comes to pass is effort. The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins. The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer. There is something frightful in the way in which not only characteristic qualities, but particular manifestations of them, are repeated from generation to generation. This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice. Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man. To obtain a man's opinion of you, make him mad. To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor. What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. When I think of talking, it is of course with a woman. For talking at its best being an inspiration, it wants a corresponding divine quality of receptiveness, and where will you find this but in a woman? Why can't somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks. Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend. Youth fades, love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; a mother's secret hope outlives them all. Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all. |
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