Famous quotes containing the words oliver wendell holmes, wendell holmes, oliver wendell, oliver and/or wendell:
“First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill,
And the parson was sitting up on a rock,
At half-past nine by the meetn-house clock,
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!
MWhat do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (18091894)
“And silence, like a poultice, comes
To heal the blows of sound.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (18091894)
“People who make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children, but their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake of a battered witticism.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (18091894)
“A man, said Oliver Cromwell, never rises so high as when he knows not whither he is going. Dreams and drunkenness, the use of opium and alcohol are the semblance and counterfeit of this oracular genius, and hence their dangerous attraction for men. For the like reason they ask the aid of wild passions, as in gaming and war, to ape in some manner these flames and generosities of the heart.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“It was a tall young oysterman lived by the river-side,
His shop was just upon the bank, his boat was on the tide;
The daughter of a fisherman, that was so straight and slim,
Lived over on the other bank, right opposite to him.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (18091894)