“What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the feeling that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only long enough for him to attempt to read a hundred?”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
“Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
“Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than what we suspect of what we think.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
“State interference is an evil, where it cannot be shown to be a good.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
“The aim of the law is not to punish sins, but is to prevent certain external results.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
“Nature has but one judgment on wrong conduct — if you can call that a judgment which seemingly has no reference to conduct as such — the judgment of death.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
“Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.