Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Quotes

War? War Is An Organized Bore.

There Is In All Men A Demand For The Superlative, So Much So That The Poor Devil That Has No Other Way Of Reaching It Attains It By Getting Drunk.

Fate Tried To Conceal Him By Naming Him Smith.

People Talk Fundamentals And Superlatives And Then Make Some Changes Of Detail.

Poverty Comes Pleading Not For Charity, For The Most Part, But Imploring Us To Find A Purchaser For Its Unmarketable Wares.

The Ideas Of The Classics, So Far As Living, Are Our Commonplaces. It Is The Modern Books That Give Us The Latest And Most Profound Conceptions. It Seems To Me Rather A Lazy Makeshift To Mumble Over The Familiar.

You Hear That Boy Laughing?you Think He's All Fun; But The Angels Laugh, Too, At The Good He Has Done; The Children Laugh Loud As They Troop To His Call, And The Poor Man That Knows Him Laughs Loudest Of All.

These Are The Hands Whose Sturdy Labor Brings The Peasant's Food, The Golden Pomp Of Kings; This Is The Page Whose Letters Shall Be Seen, Changed By The Sun To Words Of Living Green; This Is The Scholar Whose Immortal Penspells The First Lesson Hunger Taught To Men; These Are The Lines That Heaven-commanded Toil Shows On His Deed, - The Charter Of The Soil!

Who Does Not Feel That Nansen's Account Of His Search For The Pole Rather Loses Than Gains In Ideal Satisfaction By The Pretense Of A Few Trifling Acquisitions For Science?

Lord, Bid War's Trumpet Cease; Fold The Whole Earth In Peace.

On Every Stem, On Every Leaf,... And At The Root Of Everything That Grew, Was A Professional Specialist In The Shape Of Grub, Caterpillar, Aphis, Or Other Expert, Whose Business It Was To Devour That Particular Part.

I Know Of No Teachers So Powerful And Persuasive As The Little Army Of Specialists. They Carry No Banners, They Beat No Drums; But Where They Are Men Learn That Bustle And Push Are Not The Equals Of Quiet Genius And Serene Mastery.