Oliver Wendell Holmes cytaty

strona 4

„To, co za nami, i to, co przed nami, ma niewielkie znaczenie w porównaniu z tym, co jest w nas.”

„Umysł rozciągnięty nową ideą nigdy nie powraca do swych pierwotnych wymiarów.”

„Musimy żeglować czasem z wiatrem, czasem pod wiatr, ale żeglować, nie dryfować ani stawać na kotwicy.”

„Dla człowieka, podobnie jak dla ptaka,
świat ma wiele miejsc, gdzie można odpocząć,
ale gniazdo tylko jedno.”

„Jeśli ludzie nie boją się umierać nie ma sensu straszyć ich śmiercią.”

„Jest domeną wiedzy mówić, a przywilejem mądrości słuchać.”

„Nie ma najwyraźniej takiej miejscowości, która nie byłaby pępkiem świata.”

“What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left!”

“Men are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; they always did, they always will; and if you don't make it of wood, you must make it of words…”

“But Memory blushes at the sneer,
And Honor turns with frown defiant,
And Freedom, leaning on her spear,
Laughs louder than the laughing giant.”

“Scientific knowledge, even in the most modest persons, has mingled with it a something which partakes of insolence. Absolute, peremptory facts are bullies, and those who keep company with them are apt to get a bullying habit of mind.”

“Where go the poet's lines?
Answer, ye evening tapers!
Ye auburn locks, ye golden curls,
Speak from your folded papers!”

“What's the use in our caring about hard words after this,—'atheists,' heretics, infidels, and the like? They're, after all, only the cinders picked up out of those heaps of ashes round the stumps of the old stakes where they used to burn men, women, and children for not thinking just like other folks.”

“The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a deal longer.”

“I won't say, the more intellect, the less capacity for loving; for that would do wrong to the understanding and reason;—but, on the other hand, that the brain often runs away with the heart's best blood, which gives the world a few pages of wisdom or sentiment or poetry, instead of making one other heart happy, I have no question.”

“The soul of a man has a series of concentric envelopes round it, like the core of an onion, or the innermost of a nest of boxes. First he has his natural garment of flesh and blood. Then, his artificial integuments, with their true skin of solid stuffs, their cuticle of lighter tissues, and their variously tinted pigments. Thirdly, his domicile, be it a single chamber or a stately mansion. And then, the whole visible world, in which Time buttons him up as in a loose outside wrapper.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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!”

“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.”

“"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".”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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?”

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

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

“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.”

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

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