“It went to pieces all at once—
All at once and nothing first,
Just as bubbles do when they burst.”
The Deacon's Masterpiece; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Oliver Wendell Holmes 135
Poet, essayist, physician 1809–1894Related quotes
Source: Kavanagh: A Tale (1849), Chapter 13.
Context: Ah, how wonderful is the advent of spring! — the great annual miracle of the blossoming of Aaron's rod, repeated on myriads and myriads of branches! — the gentle progression and growth of herbs, flowers, trees, — gentle and yet irrepressible, — which no force can stay, no violence restrain, like love, that wins its way and cannot be withstood by any human power, because itself is divine power. If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change! But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity. To most men only the cessation of the miracle would be miraculous and the perpetual exercise of God's power seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be.
“Life is everything and nothing all at once.”
From the Pisces Iscariot liner notes.
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Seymour: An Introduction (1959)
“HOBBES:
All this modern technology just makes people try to do everything at once.”
“When the bubble of ignorance bursts the self realizes its oneness with the indivisible Self.”
65 : Ignorance Personified, p. 111.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)
Context: When the bubble of ignorance bursts the self realizes its oneness with the indivisible Self.
Words that proceed from the Source of Truth have real meaning. But when men speakthese words as their own, the words become meaningless.