63+ Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Quotes On Education, Religion And Slavery

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. was an American writer, physician, professor, lecturer, and poet. He was one of the most important figures in the American Renaissance period, and is best known for his medical essays and his poem "Old Ironsides". He was also an influential member of the Transcendentalist movement, and a mentor to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. on education, religion, life.

Top 10 Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Quotes

1. Youth fades, love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all.
2. Most people are willing to take the Sermon on the Mount as a flag to sail under, but few will use it as a rudder by which to steer.
3. The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce.
4. The books we read should be chosen with great care, that they may be, as an Egyptian king wrote over his library,'The medicines of the soul.
5. Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of the place it came from, and whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and color of its birthplace.
6. There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise.
7. And if I should live to be The last leaf upon the tree In the spring, Let them smile, as I do now, At the old forsaken bough Where I cling.
8. But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.
9. Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future.
10. Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way - and the fools know it.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Short Quotes

• No families take so little medicine as those of doctors, except those of apothecaries.
• Science is the topography of ignorance.
• The mind of a bigot to the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it contracts.
• Civilization is the process of reducing the infinite to the finite.
• To obtain a man's opinion of you, make him mad.
• Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.
• I would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the purpose.
• Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers.
• See how he throws his baited lines about,/And plays his men as anglers play their trout.
• Death tugs at my ear and says, 'Live. I am coming.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Quotes About Life

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. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Cupid "the little greatest enemy." — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Trouble makes us one with every human being in the world - and unless we touch others, we're out of touch with life. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Man has his will, but woman has her way. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Life as we call it, is nothing but the edge of the boundless ocean of existence when it comes upon soundings. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the feeling that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only long enough for him to attempt to read a hundred? — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Quotes About Love

I hate paying taxes. But I love the civilization they give me — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easily of all, the gate of fear. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Yes, child of suffering, thou may'st well be sure He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor! — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Quotes About Person

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. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Stillness of person and steadiness of features are signal marks of good breeding. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Famous Quotes And Sayings

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... — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

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. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men - from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

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! — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground-floor. But if a man hasn't got plenty of good common sense, the more science he has, the worse for his patient. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

I firmly believe that if the whole material medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be better for mankind-and all the worse for the fishes. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

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. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

The sea drowns out humanity and time. It has no sympathy with either, for it belongs to eternity; and of that it sings its monotonous song forever and ever. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

The year is getting to feel rich, for his golden fruits are ripening fast, and he has a large balance in the barns, which are his banks. The members of his family have found out that he is well to do in the world. September is dressing herself in show of dahlias and splendid marigolds and starry zinnias. October, the extravagant sister, has ordered an immense amount of the most gorgeous forest tapestry for her grand reception. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. Georgius Secundus was then alive,-- Snuffy old drone from the German hive. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Leverage is everything-don't begin to pry until you've got the long arm on your side. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Even a dog knows the difference between being kicked and being stumbled over. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Learn the sweet magic of a cheerful face. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

What we most want to ask of our Maker is an unfolding of the divine purpose in putting human beings into conditions in which such numbers of them would be sure to go wrong. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

The best servant does his work unseen. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

[Science is] piecemeal revelation. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

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? — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

The truth is that the whole system of beliefs which comes in with the story of the fall of man ... is gently falling out of enlightened human intelligence. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

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!'. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Don't be 'consistent', but be simply true. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

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. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant things from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell them. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades! Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids! O, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,-- Depart,--be off,--excede,--evade,--erump! — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

For nothing burns with such amazing speed, As the dry sticks of a religious creed. — 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. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

It is a good plan to have a book with you in all places and at all times. If you are presently without, hurry without delay to the nearest shop and buy one of mine. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

America is the only place where man is full-grown! — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

You may have genius. The contrary is, of course, probable. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Life Lessons by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

1. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. taught us to appreciate the beauty and power of language, and to use it to express ourselves in meaningful ways.
2. He also showed us the importance of using our creativity and imagination to explore the world around us and to find joy in life.
3. Finally, his work encourages us to think deeply about the world and to strive to create a better future for ourselves and for others.