Oliver Wendell Holmes: Trending quotes (page 6)

“You don't know, perhaps, but I will tell you; the brain is the palest of all the internal organs, and the heart the reddest. Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of the place it came from, and whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and color of its birthplace.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Source: The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859), Ch. VI.

Color , Heart

“Most persons have died before they expire, — died to all earthly longings, so that the last breath is only, as it were, the locking of the door of the already deserted mansion.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Source: The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859), Ch. XI.

Personality

“The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom;
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The last Leaf; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love

“His home! the Western giant smiles,
And twirls the spotty globe to find it;
This little speck, the British Isles?
’T is but a freckle,—never mind it.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

A good Time going; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Smile , Home

“The Widow Rowens was now in the full bloom of ornamental sorrow.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes book Elsie Venner

Elsie Venner (1859)

“Boston State-house is the hub of the solar system. You couldn't pry that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a crow-bar.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

Housing

“O hearts that break and give no sign
Save whitening lip and fading tresses!”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Voiceless; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Heart

“So from the heights of Will
Life's parting stream descends,
And, as a moment turns its slender rill,
Each widening torrent bends,

From the same cradle's side,
From the same mother's knee,
—One to long darkness and the frozen tide,
One to the Peaceful Sea!”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

"The Two Streams", Ch. VI.
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)

Life , Peace , Parting , Sea

“When one has had all his conceit taken out of him, when he has lost all his illusions, his feathers will soon soak through, and he will fly no more.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

Flying

“"I suppose you are an entomologist?"
"Not quite so ambitious as that, sir. I should like to put my eyes on the individual entitled to that name. No man can be truly called an entomologist, sir; the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp".”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Poet at the Breakfast Table (1872)

Intelligence

“All of us love companionship and sympathy; some of us may love them too much. All of us are more or less imaginative in our theology.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes book Elsie Venner

Elsie Venner (1859)

Love , Imagination

“The creative action is not voluntary at all, but automatic; we can only put the mind into the proper attitude, and wait for the wind, that blows where it listeth, to breathe over it. Thus the true state of creative genius is allied to reverie, or dreaming.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

Dreams , Waiting

“You hear that boy laughing?—you think he’s all fun;
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done;
The children laugh loud as they troop to his call,
And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Boys; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Children , Angels , Boy , Thinking

“You can hire logic, in the shape of a lawyer, to prove anything that you want to prove.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

“Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day?”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Deacon's Masterpiece; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Way

“The brightest blades grow dim with rust,
The fairest meadow white with snow.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Chanson without Music; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold;
But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

No Time like the old Time; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Friendship

“I try his head occasionally as housewives try eggs,— give it an intellectual shake and hold it up to the light, so to speak, to see if it has life in it, actual or potential, or only contains lifeless albumen.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

Life , Light

“What a miserable thing it is to be poor.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes book Elsie Venner

Elsie Venner (1859)

“Each woman virtually summons every man to show cause why he doth not love her.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

Love