Oliver Wendell Holmes

Love is the master-key that opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easily of all, the gate of fear. How terrible is the one fact of beauty!

Speak not too well of one who scarce will know Himself transfigured in its roseate glow; Say kindly of him what is, chiefly, true, Remembering always he belongs to you; Deal with him as a truant, if you will, But claim him, keep him, call …

I have always considered my face a convenience rather than an ornament.

Good to the heels the well-worn slipper feels When the tired player shuffles off the buskin; A page of Hood may do a fellow good After a scolding from Carlyle or Ruskin.

God reigneth. All is well.

I would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the purpose. I know there are professors in this country who 'ligate' arteries. Other surgeons only tie them, and it stops the bleeding just as well.

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

Wake in our breast the living fires, The holy faith that warmed our sires; Thy hand hath made our nation free; To die for her is serving Thee.

Death only grasps; to live is to pursue, — Dream on! there's nothing but illusion true!

Call him not old whose visionary brain Holds o’er the post its undivided reign, For him in vain the envious seasons roll, Who bears eternal summer in this soul.

I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be better for mankind—and all the worse for the fishes.

Beware how you take away hope from any human being.

Then the white man hates him [the Native American], and hunts him down like the wild beasts of the forest, and so the red-crayon sketch is rubbed out, and the canvas is ready for a picture of manhood a little more like God's own image.

Lean, hungry, savage anti-everythings.

And when you stick on conversation’s burrs, Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.

Faith loves to lean on time's destroying arm, And age, like distance, lends a double charm.

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

Thine eye was on the censer, And not the hand that bore it.

The freeman casting with unpurchased hand The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.

When the last reader reads no more.

And since, I never dare to write As funny as I can.

You think they are crusaders sent From some infernal clime, To pluck the eyes of sentiment And dock the tail of Rhyme, To crack the voice of Melody And break the legs of Time.

And silence, like a poultice, comes To heal the blows of sound.

Thou say’st an undisputed thing In such a solemn way.