Oliver Wendell Holmes

Gentlemen, to the lady without whom I should never have survived for eighty, nor sixty, nor yet thirty years. Her smile has been my lyric, her understanding, the rhythm of the stanza. She has been the spring wherefrom I have drawn the …

I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy — I don't disparage envy but I don't accept it as legitimately my master.

The interpretation of constitutional principles must not be too literal. We must remember that the machinery of government would not work if it were not allowed a little play in its joints.

A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure. It offers a necessity of life that must be rationed among those who have power over it.

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

The elaborate argument against the constitutionality of the Act if interpreted as we read it, in accordance with its obvious meaning does not need an elaborate answer.

Some of her answers might excite popular prejudice, but if there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought—not free thought for those who agree with …

Courts are apt to err by sticking too closely to the words of a law where those words import a policy that goes beyond them.

The power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits.

Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices

If in the long run the beliefs expressed in proletarian dictatorship are destined to be accepted by the dominant forces of the community, the only meaning of free speech is that they should be given their chance and have their way.

Eloquence may set fire to reason.

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

The general rule, at least, is that while property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking.

If a thing has been practised for two hundred years by common consent, it will need a strong case for the Fourteenth Amendment to affect it.

A page of history is worth a volume of logic.

Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife.

Men must turn square corners when they deal with the Government.

I always say, as you know, that if my fellow citizens want to go to Hell I will help them. It's my job.

Only the emergency that makes it immediately dangerous to leave the correction of evil counsels to time warrants making any exception to the sweeping command, "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech."

I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing …

It is only the present danger of immediate evil or an intent to bring it about that warrants Congress in setting a limit to the expression of opinion where private rights are not concerned.

That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment.