“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.”

— Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

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Oliver Wendell Holmes 135

Poet, essayist, physician 1809–1894

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Oliver Wendell Holmes 135

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