197 Quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife.

If I were dying, my last words would be: Have faith and pursue the unknown end.

To be master of any branch of knowledge, you must master those which lie next to it, and thus to know anything you must know all.

Success. Is not the position where you are standing, but which direction you are going.

Society is always trying in some way to grind us down to a single flat surface.

The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms. Very often it does not know what to do with genius.

The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky, but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that can be identified; although some decisions with which I have disagreed seem to me to have forgotten the fact.

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.

We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible.