Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Quotes

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.

Young man, the secret of my success is that at early age I discovered that I was not God.

Young men know the rules, but old men know the exceptions.

Pretty much all law consists in forbidding men to do something that they want to do.

The only prize much cared for by the powerful is power.

I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.

If I were dying, my last words would be: Have faith and pursue the unknown end.

Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.

To have doubted one’s own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.

People talk fundamentals and superlatives and then make some changes of detail.

The language of judicial decision is mainly the language of logic. And the logical method and form flatter that longing for certainty and for repose which is in every human mind. But certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.

A new untruth is better than an old truth.

A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command the latter.

Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.