Famous quotes containing the words oliver wendell holmes, wendell holmes, oliver wendell, oliver and/or wendell:
“Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“He took the paper, and I watched,
And saw him peep within;
At the first line he read, his face
Was all upon the grin.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“I have this very moment finished reading a novel called The Vicar of Wakefield [by Oliver Goldsmith].... It appears to me, to be impossible any person could read this book through with a dry eye and yet, I don’t much like it.... There is but very little story, the plot is thin, the incidents very rare, the sentiments uncommon, the vicar is contented, humble, pious, virtuous—but upon the whole the book has not at all satisfied my expectations.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called “facts.” They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain. Who does not know fellows that always have an ill-conditioned fact or two that they lead after them into decent company like so many bull-dogs, ready to let them slip at every ingenious suggestion, or convenient generalization, or pleasant fancy? I allow no “facts” at this table.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)