Quotes from Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

See how he throws his baited lines about,/And plays his men as anglers play their trout.

America is the only place where man is full-grown!

And if I should live to beThe last leaf upon the treeIn the spring,Let them smile, as I do now,At the old forsaken boughWhere I cling.

We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them, he will still feel as the famous woman did about ghosts, Je n'y crois pas, mais je les crains, — "I don't believe in them, but I am afraid of them, nevertheless."

Most people are willing to take the Sermon on the Mount as a flag to sail under, but few will use it as a rudder by which to steer.

It is a good plan to have a book with you in all places and at all times. If you are presently without, hurry without delay to the nearest shop and buy one of mine.

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

Beware how you take away hope from any human being.

Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel.

Do not be bullied out of your common sense by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant.

The sea drowns out humanity and time. It has no sympathy with either, for it belongs to eternity; and of that it sings its monotonous song forever and ever.

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.