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"49 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Quotes & Sayings

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Born: 29 August 1809. Died: 7 October 1894 | Writer | Poet |

The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.

Kiss Great Echo Cannon
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Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become.

Become Come Contrary Courtesy
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The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.

Exceptions Knows Man Old
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I like children; I like 'em, and I respect 'em. Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by them.

Children Done Honest Like
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Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing.

Because Grow Men Old
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Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.

Always Because Before Die
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Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground-floor. But if a man hasn't got plenty of good common sense, the more science he has, the worse for his patient.

Chamber Common First-Rate Furniture
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Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.

Fits Handle Lie Many
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Have the courage to act instead of react.

Act Courage Instead React
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Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.

Before Carve Clearly Every
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A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.

Experience Insight Life Moment
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Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays the pleasing game of interchanging praise.

Friendship Game Plays Pleasing
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A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born.

At Least One Before Begin Born
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Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the hand of the Angel of the Resurrection.

Angel Brains Case Clocks
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The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms. Very often it does not know what to do with genius.

Always Arms Does Genius
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The man who is always worrying about whether or not his soul would be damned generally has a soul that isn't worth a damn.

About Always Damn Generally
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Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easily of all, the gate of fear.

Easily Fear Gate Gates
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A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve.

Achieve Answer Asking Attempting
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Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else - very rarely to those who say to themselves, 'Go to, now, let us be a celebrated individual!'.

About Celebrated Else Fame
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To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor.

Against Anchor Drift Lie
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A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.

Always First First Time He
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Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.

Earthly Good Heavenly Minded
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Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.

Every Knocks Other Out
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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?

Another Everybody Give List
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It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.
Enthusiasm Faith Life Living
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Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up.

Another Better Grow Ideas
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Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.

Accurate Insanity Logic Mind
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Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.

Blood Grow Language Out
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I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.

Action Being Being Judged He
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A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.

Hundred Hundred Times Often Original
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Simple people... are very quick to see the live facts which are going on about them.

About Facts Going Live
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Fresh air is good if you do not take too much of it; most of the achievements and pleasures of life are in bad air.

Achievements Air Bad Fresh
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The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great scholars great men.

Been Commonly Great Great Men
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Every event that a man would master must be mounted on the run, and no man ever caught the reins of a thought except as it galloped past him.

Caught Event Ever Every
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Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light.
After Light Rarely Sought
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Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.
Any Conscious Each Face
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People who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be 'consistent'.

Be True Consistent Contradict Honestly
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Memory is a net: one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook, but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.

Brook Dozen Finds Fish
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Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way - and the fools know it.

Controversy Fools Know Men
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Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future.

Abstract Beauty Future Past
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Stillness of person and steadiness of features are signal marks of good breeding.

Breeding Features Good Good Breeding
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It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.

Knowledge Listen Privilege Province
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There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise.

Days Friend Greeting His
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Most people are willing to take the Sermon on the Mount as a flag to sail under, but few will use it as a rudder by which to steer.

Few Flag Most Mount
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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.

About All Day Break Bubble
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To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.

Cheerful Far Forty Forty Years
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The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men - from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.

Bosom Carry Key Men
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What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left!What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left!

Authors Blessed Chips Contrived
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Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.

Money Put Trust Your
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Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Quotes & Sayings