Oliver Wendell Quotes (41 Quotes)

In walking, the will and the muscles are so accustomed to working together and performing their task with so little expenditure of force that the intellect is left comparatively free.

The minute a phrase, becomes current, it becomes an apology for not thinking accurately to the end of the sentence.

Every man is an omnibus in which his ancestors ride.

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

Young men know the rules, but old men know the exceptions.

What a comfort a dull but kindly person is, to be sure, at times A ground-glass shade over a gas-lamp does not bring more solace to our dazzled eyes than such a one to our minds.

How many people live on the reputation of the reputation they might have made

Writing or printing is like shooting with a rifle you may hit your reader's mind, or miss it - but talking is like playing at a mark with the pipe of an engine if it is within reach, and you have time enough, you can't help hitting it

If truth were not often suggested by error, if old implements could not be adjusted to new uses, human progress would be slow

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

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

Man is born a predestined idealist, for he is born to act. To act is to affirm the worth of an end, and to persist in affirming the worth of an end is to make an ideal.

No Ne'er was mingled such a draught In palace, hall or arbor, As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed, That night in Boston Harbor

Civilization is the process of reducing the infinite to the finite

Pick my left pocket of its silver dime, but spare the right - it holds my golden time

Old books, you know well, are books of the world's youth, and new books are the fruits of its age.

With crimson juice the thirsty southern day, Sucks from the hills where buried armies lie, So that the dreamy passion it imparts Is drawn from heroes' bones and lovers' hearts

Several years before birth, advertise for a couple of parents belonging to long-lived families.

It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists through blind imitation of the past.

When men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe that the ultimate good is better reached by free trade in ideas.

Easy crying widows take new husbands soonest there's nothing like wet weather for transplanting

Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the same machinery of sensibility one is wind-power, and the other water-power that is all

Our honest Puritan festival is spreading, not as formerly, as a kind of opposition Christmas, but as a welcome prelude and adjunct, a brief interval of good cheer and social rejoicing, heralding the longer season of feasting and rest from labor in th

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

It is by no means certain that our individual personality is the single inhabitant of these our corporeal frames... We all do things both awake and asleep which surprise us. Perhaps we have cotenants in this house we live in.

Nature has but one judgment on wrong conduct - if you can call that a judgment which seemingly has no reference to conduct as such - the judgment of death

Little-minded people's thoughts move in such small circles that five minutes conversation gives you an arc long enough to determine their whole curve.

The most foolish kind of a book is a kind of leaky boat on the sea of wisdom some of the wisdom will get in anyhow.

Even the wisest woman you talk to is ignorant of something you may know, but an elegant woman never forgets her elegance.

Consciously or unconsciously we all strive to make the kind of a world we like.

Man has will, but woman has her way.

A man over ninety is a great comfort to all his elderly neighbors he is a picket-guard at the extreme outpost and the young folks of sixty and seventy feel that the enemy must get by him before he can come near their camp.

Historic continuity with the past is not a duty, it is only a necessity

We must have a weak spot or two in our character before we can love it much

God's plan made a hopeful beginning. But man spoiled his chances by sinning. We trust that the story will end in God's glory. But, at present, the other side's winning.

Speak not too well of one who scarce will know himself transfigured in its roseate glow Say kindly of him what is, chiefly, true, remembering always he belongs to you Deal with him as a truant, if you will, But claim him, keep him, call him brother still

Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man.It involves the necessity for perpetual choicewhich is the kind of labor men have always dreaded.

Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide -that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life -are alike forbidden.

My fee, if I select the subject, is 150 if your committee selects the subject, the charge is 250, but in either case the speech is the same

Self-abnegation, that rare virtue, that good men preach and good women practice

You commit a sin of omission if you do not utilize all the power that is within you. All men have claims on man, and to the man with special talents, this is a very special claim. It is required that a man take part in the actions and clashes of his time that the peril of being judged not to have lived at all.