Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Quotes About Life
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On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself, as against the saints who deny it.
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[The Constitution] is an experiment as all life is an experiment.
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These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings; This is the page whose letters shall be seen, Changed by the sun to words of living green; This is the scholar whose immortal penSpells the first lesson hunger taught to men; These are the lines that heaven-commanded Toil Shows on his deed, - the charter of the soil!
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I despise making the most of one's time. Half of the pleasures of life consist of the opportunities one has neglected.
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The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.
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We are all sentenced to capital punishment for the crime of living, and though the condemned cell of our earthly existence is but a narrow and bare dwelling-place, we have adjusted ourselves to it, and made it tolerably comfortable for the little while we are to be confined in it.
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To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.
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The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.
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A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.
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Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it.
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On every stem, on every leaf,... and at the root of everything that grew, was a professional specialist in the shape of grub, caterpillar, aphis, or other expert, whose business it was to devour that particular part.
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As for the excellent little wretches who grow up in what they are taught, with never a scruple or a query, ... they signify nothing in the intellectual life of the race.
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Life is a fatal complaint, and an eminently contagious one.
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Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.
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Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
- Born: March 8, 1841
- Died: March 6, 1935
- Occupation: Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
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