Quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

“Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.”

“Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easily of all, the gate of fear.”

“Love prefers twilight to daylight.”

“Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.”

“The Amen of nature is always a flower.”

“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 w...”

“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.”

“A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were...”

“Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.”

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

“Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.”

“It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.”

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

“Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.”

“Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light.”

“Have the courage to act instead of react.”

“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it - ...”

“The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.”

“Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.”

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