Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

To be civilized is to be potentially master of all possible ideas, and that means that one has got beyond being shocked, although one preserves one's own moral aesthetic preferences.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

We do not quit playing because we grow old, we grow old because we quit playing.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

When in doubt, do it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Why can't somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.
Oliver Wendell Holmes