266 Quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes

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.

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.

Leverage is everything-don’t begin to pry until you’ve got the long arm on your side.

Yes, child of suffering, thou may’st well be sure He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor!

To obtain a man’s opinion of you, make him mad.

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.

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.

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.

Don’t be ‘consistent,’ but be simply true.