Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

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

“Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.”

“A man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.”

“There's nothing that keeps its youth, so far as I know, but a tree and truth.”

“Life transforming ideas have always come to me through books.”

“Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.”

“Shun such as lounge through afternoons and eves,And on thy dial write, "Beware of thieves!"Felon of minutes, never taught to feelThe worth of treasures which thy fingers steal,Pick my left pocket of its silver dime,But spare the right,--it holds my golden time!”

“If the wild filly, "Progress," thou wouldst ride,Have young companions ever at thy side;But wouldst thou stride the stanch old mare, "Success,"Go with thine elders, though they please thee less.”

“Yet in opinions look not always back,--Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track;Leave what you've done for what you have to do;Don't be "consistent," but be simply true.”

“Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good”

“The Last LeafI saw him once before,As he passed by the door,And againThe pavement stones resound,As he totters o'er the groundWith his cane.They say that in his prime,Ere the pruning-knife of TimeCut him down,Not a better man was foundBy the Crier on his roundThrough the town.But now he walks the streets,And looks at all he meetsSad and wan,And he shakes his feeble head,That it seems as if he said,"They are gone."The mossy marbles restOn the lips that he has prestIn their bloom,And the names he loved to hearHave been carved for many a yearOn the tomb.My grandmamma has saidPoor old lady, she is deadLong agoThat he had a Roman nose,And his cheek was like a roseIn the snow;But now his nose is thin,And it rests upon his chinLike a staff,And a crook is in his back,And a melancholy crackIn his laugh.I know it is a sinFor me to sit and grinAt him here;But the old three-cornered hat,And the breeches, and all that,Are so queer!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.”

“Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out arose by and by. Life is like that - one stitch at a time taken patientlyand the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery.”

“Beware how you take away hope from another human being”

“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.”

“A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born.”

“Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked”

“Old Time, in whose banks we deposit our notesIs a miser who always wants guineas for groats;He keeps all his customers still in arrearsBy lending them minutes and charging them years.”

“The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce.”

“Man is born a predestined idealist, for he is born to act. To act is to affirm the worth of an end, and to persist in affirming the worth of an end is to make an ideal. ”

“إنني أعتقد أن هذا الكوكب تضيئه نافذة ذات ألوان، فهنا فرد ينظر من خلال اللون الأزرق، وآخر من خلال اللون الأحمر أو الأصفر، ولكن اللون في الخارج لون أبيض، والذين يرونه على حقيقته إنما هم الذين ينظرون من نافذة مفتوحة”

“My experience with public libraries is that the first volume of the book I inquire for is out, unless I happen to want the second, when that is out.”

“Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.”

“Why can’t somebody give us a list of things everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of the things that everybody says but nobody thinks?”

“Death tugs at my ear and says, 'Live. I am coming.”

“The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.”

“The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of an eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will contract.”

“Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.”

“The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts.”

“The great thing in this world, is not so much where we are, but in which direction we are moving.”

“A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.”

“To obtain a man's opinion of you, make him mad.”

“Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.”

“Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing.”

“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.”

“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving—we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it—but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.”

“Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.”

“Science is the topography of ignorance.”

“What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the feeling that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only long enough for him to attempt to read a hundred?”

“Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse. One comfort we have - Cincinnati sounds worse.”