Oliver Wendell Holmes

Famous quotes containing the words oliver wendell holmes, wendell holmes, oliver wendell and/or wendell:

    A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    Little of all we value here
    Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
    Without both feeling and looking queer.
    In fact, there’s nothing that keeps its youth,
    So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    And if I should live to be
    The last leaf upon the tree
    In the spring,
    Let them smile, as I do now,
    At the old forsaken bough
    Where I cling.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    Unpretending mediocrity is good, and genius is glorious; but a weak flavor of genius in an essentially common person is detestable. It spoils the grand neutrality of a commonplace character, as the rinsings of an unwashed wine-glass spoil a draught of fair water.
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)