266 Quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes




  • Author Oliver Wendell Holmes
  • Quote

    If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it round. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't embrace trouble; that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Oliver Wendell Holmes
  • Quote

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

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Oliver Wendell Holmes
  • Quote

    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

  • Tags
  • Share


  • Author Oliver Wendell Holmes
  • Quote

    All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called ''facts.'' They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain. Who does not know fellows that always have an ill-conditioned fact or two that they lead after them into decent company like so many bull-dogs, ready to let them slip at every ingenious suggestion, or convenient generalization, or pleasant fancy? I allow no ''facts'' at this table.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Oliver Wendell Holmes
  • Quote

    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.

  • Tags
  • Share