Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

    Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
    Long has it waved on high,
    And many an eye has danced to see
    That banner in the sky;
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    What a comfort a dull but kindly person is, to be sure, at times! A ground-glass shade over a gas-lamp does not bring more solace to our dazzled eyes than such a one to our minds.
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide—that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life—are alike forbidden.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    When it’s over I don’t want to wonder
    if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
    I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
    or full of argument.
    I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
    —Mary Oliver (b. 1935)

    And silence, like a poultice, comes
    To heal the blows of sound.
    —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)