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

Nothing is so commonplace has the wish to be remarkable.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

People talk fundamentals and superlatives and then make some changes of detail.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The great act of faith is when a man decides he is not God.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The greatest act of faith is when a man understands he is not God.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will contract.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The only prize much cared for by the powerful is power.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The rule of joy and the law of duty seem to me all one.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

To be 70 years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be 40 years old.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

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

To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

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

We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

You make me chuckle when you say that you are no longer young, that you have turned twenty-four. A man is or may be young to after sixty, and not old before eighty.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Young man, the secret of my success is that an early age I discovered that I was not God.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.