| WIDGER'S QUOTATIONS FROM THE PROJECT GUTENBERG WORKS OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES CONTENTS: The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table ........ [Etext #751] aofbt10.txt The Professor at the Breakfast Table ....... [Etext #2665] prabt10.txt The Poet at the Breakfast Table ............ [Etext #2666] ptabt10.txt Over the Teacups ........................... [Etext #2689] teacp10.txt Elsie Venner ............................... [Etext #2696] elsie10.txt The Guardian Angel ......................... [Etext #2697] angel10.txt A Mortal Antipathy ......................... [Etext #2698] antip10.txt Passages from an Old Volume of Life ........ [Etext #2706] pages10.txt Medical Essays ............................. [Etext #2700] medic10.txt The Entire Gutenberg Files of Holmes ....... [Etext #3252] ohent10.txt EDITOR'S NOTE Readers well acquainted with the works of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes may wish to see if their favorite passages are listed in this selection. The etext editor will be glad to add your suggestions. One of the advantages of internet over paper publication is the ease of quick revision. All the titles may be found using the Project Gutenberg search engine: http://promo.net/pg/ After downloading a specific file, the location and complete context of the quotations may be found by inserting a small part of the quotation into the 'Find' or 'Search' functions of the user's word processing program. The quotations are in two formats: 1. Small passages from the text. 2. A list alphabetized of one-liners. The editor may be contacted at for comments, questions or suggested additions to these extracts. D.W. WIDGER'S QUOTATIONS THE AUTOCRAT AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE (Originally published at Project Gutenberg by David Price) [Etext #751] aofbt10.txt or aofbt10.zip A little queer and uncertain in general aspect. A misprint kills a sensitive author A nail will pick a lock that defies hatchet and hammer Absolute, peremptory facts are bullies Advised every literary man to have a profession. Afraid of books who have not handled them from infancy Age and neglect united gradually Agreed on certain ultimata of belief Algebraic symbols of minds which have grown too weak All his geese are swans All men are bores, except when we want them All men love all women All the forms of moral excellence, except truth All want to reach old age and grumble when they get it And now we two are walking the long path in peace together Another privilege of talking is to misquote Arc in the movement of a large intellect As a child, he should have tumbled about in a library As I understand truth As to clever people's hating each other Asked Solon what made him dare to be so obstinate Assume a standard of judgment in our own minds At the mercy of every superior mind Audacious self-esteem, with good ground for it Automatic and involuntary actions of the mind Babbage's calculating machine Be very careful to whom you trust one of these keys Beautiful effects from wit,all the prismatic colors Been in the same precise circumstances before Behave like men and gentlemen about it, if you know how. Bells which small trades-people connect with their shop-doors Better too few words, from the woman we love Bill which will render pockets a superfluity in your next suit Blank checks of intellectual bankruptcy Bowing and nodding over the music Brain often runs away with the heart's best blood Brilliant flashesof silence! Brute beasts of the intellectual domain Bury in it beliefs, doubts, dreams, hopes, and terrors But it was in talking of Life that we came most nearly together But we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. C'est le DERNIER pas qui cote Called an old man for the first time Cel
va sans dire Character is distinctly shown at the age of or months. Cigar Clairvoyance which sees into things without opening them Code of finalities is a necessary condition of profitable talk Comfort is essential to enjoyment Commerce is just putting his granite foot upon them Common sense was good enough for him Common sense, as you understand it. Compare the racer with the trotter Conceit has the virtue of making them cheerful Conceit is just a natural thing to human minds Conclusion that he or she is really dull Consciousness of carrying a "settler" in the form of a fact Controversy Conversation which is suggestive rather than argumentative Conversational blank checks or counters Conversational bully Conversational fungi spring up most luxuriantly Conversational soprano Creative action is not voluntary at all Crippled souls Crow with a king-bird after him Cut your climate to your constitution Dangerous subjects Demand for intellectual labor is so enormous Did I believe in love at first sight? Differ on the fundamental principles Dishwater from the washings of English dandyism Disputing about remainders and fractions Do you ever wonder why poets talk so much about flowers? Do you know how important good jockeying is to authors? Don't believe any man ever talked like that in this world Don't ever think the poetry is dead in an old man Don't make your moral staple consist of the negative virtues Doomed to the pangs of an undeceived self-estimate Dulness is not commonly a game fish Easier to dispute it than to disprove it Easier to say this than to prove it Elysian abandonment of a huge recumbent chair. Every person's feelings have a front-door and a side-door Extra talent does sometimes make people jealous Facts always yield the place of honor, in conversation Few, if any, were ruined by drinking Flash terms for words which truly characterize their objects. Fortune had left her, sorrow had baptized her Fortune is the measure of intelligence Friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things Gambling with dice or stocks Gambling, on the great scale, is not republican Generally ruined before they became drunkards Genius in an essentially common person is detestable Gift of seeing themselves in the true light Give it an intellectual shake and hold it up to the light Give us the luxuries of life Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris Good feeling helps society to make liars of most of us Good for nothing until they have been long kept and used Got his hand up, as a pointer lifts his forefoot Governed, not by, but according to laws Grave without a stone where nothing but a man is buried Great silent-moving misery puts a new stamp on us Grow old early, if you would be old long Grow we must, if we outgrow all that we love. Habit is a labor-saving invention Hard it is for some people to get out of a room He that has once done you a kindness He who is carried by horses must deal with rogues Height of art to conceal art Her breathing was somewhat hurried and high, or thoracic Here lies buried the soul of the licentiate Pedro Garcias Hire logic, in the shape of a lawyer Hold their outspread hands over your head Holes in all her pockets Hoped he did deserve a little abuse occasionally Hopelessly dull discourse acts inductively How long will school-keeping take to kill you? Hung with moss, looking like bearded Druids Hydrostatic paradox of controversy I allow no "facts " at this table I always believed in life rather than in books I always break down when folks cry in my face I am my own son, as it seems to me I had not thought love was ever meant for me. I hate books I have lived by the sea-shore and by the mountains I have taken all knowledge to be my province I love horses I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds I replied with my usual forbearance I show my thought, another his I tell my secrets too easily when I am downhearted. I think I have not been attacked enough for it If I thought I should ever see the Alps! If so and so, we should have been this or that If they have run as well as they knew how! Il faut ne pas BRUTALISER la machine In what direction we are moving Incipit Allegoria Senectutis. Infinite ocean of similitudes and analogies Insanity Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked Intellectual companions can be found easily Is this the mighty occan?is this all? It is by little things that we know ourselves It is pleasant to be foolish at the right time Judge men's minds by comparing with mine Keep his wit in the background Key to this side-door Knowledge and timber only useful when seasoned La main de fer sous le gant de velours Laid the egg of the Reformation which Luther hatched Laughs at times at the grand airs "Science" puts on Law of the road with regard to handsome faces Leading a string of my mind's daughters to market Leap at a single bound into celebrity Learn anything twice as easily as in my earlier days Leave your friend to learn unpleasant truths from his enemies Lecturer is public property Let us cry! Liability of all men to be elected to public office Life is maintained by the respiration of oxygen and of sentiment Life would be nothing without paper-credit Like taking the cat in your lap after holding a squirrel Listen to what others say about subjects you have studied Little great man Little muscle which knows its importance Little narrow streaks of specialized knowledge Live on the reputation of the reputation they might have made Living in a narrow world of dry habits Logic Logicians carry the surveyor's chain over the track Long illness is the real vampyrism Look through the silvered rings of the arcus senilis! Love is sparingly soluble in the words of men Love must be either rich or rosy Love-capacity is a congenital endowment Lying is unprofitable Made up your mind to do when you ask them for advice Man is father to the boy that was Man of family Man who means to be honest for a literary pickpocket Man's and a woman's dusting a library Man's first life-story shall clean him out, so to speak Mathematical fact May doubt everything to-day if I will only do it civilly Meaningless blushing Mechanical invention had exhausted itself Memory is a net Men are fools, cowards, and liars all at once Men grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay Men of facts wait their turn in grim silence Men that it weakens one to talk with an hour Men that know everything except how to make a living Men who have found new occupations when growing old Might have hired an EARTHQUAKE for less money! Moralist and occasional sermonizer Most of our common, working beliefs are probabilities Moved as if all her articulations were elbow-joints Much ashamed of some people for retaining their reason Must be weaned from his late suppers now Must not read such a string of verses too literally Must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it Napoleon's test Nature dresses and undresses them Nature, who always has her pockets full of seeds Nearest approach to flying that man has ever made Neither make too much of flaws or overstatements Never forget where they have put their money No fresh truth ever gets into a book No man knows his own voice Nobody is so old he doesn't think he can live a year Nutritious diet of active sympathetic benevolence Oblivion as residuary legatee Oblivion's Uncatalogued Library Odious trick of speech or manners must be got rid of. Oh, so patient she is, this imperturbable Nature! Old Age Old age appear as a series of personal insults and indignities Old jokes are dynamometers of mental tension One can generally tell these wholesale thieves easily enough One doesn't like to be cruel,and yet one hates to lie One that goes in a nurse may come out an angel One very sad thing in old friendships Open patches where the sun gets in and goes to sleep Oracle Original, though you have uttered it a hundred times Ought to produce insanity in every well-regulated mind Our brains are seventy-year clocks Overrate their own flesh and blood Painted there by reflection from our faces Passion never laughs People in the green stage of millionism People that make puns are like wanton boys Person is really full of information, and does not abuse it Personal incidents that call up single sharp pictures Physical necessity to talk out what is in the mind Plagiarism Pluck survives stamina Poem must be kept and used, like a meersehaum, or a violin Poetry of words is quite as beautiful as that of sentences Poetry, instead of making one other heart happy Poor creature that does not often repeat himself Poverty is evidence of limited capacity Power of human beings is a very strictly limited agency Power of music Pride, in the sense of contemning others Probabilities Project a principle full in the face of obvious fact! Provincial conceit, which some of us must plead guilty to. Pun is prim facie an insult Put coppers on the railroad-tracks Qu'est ce qu'il a fait? What has he done? Racing horses are essentially gambling implements Rapidity with which ideas grow old in our memories Rather longer than usual dressing that morning Rather meet three of the scowlers than one of the smilers. Regained my freedom with a sigh Religious mental disturbances Remarkably intelligent audience Remarks like so many postage-stamps Returning thanks after a dinner of many courses Ribbon which has strangled so many false pretensions Sad thing to be born a sneaking fellow Saddle-leather is in some respects even preferable Saturation-point of each mind differs from that of every other Scientific certainty has no spring in it Scientific knowledge Second story projecting See if the ripe fruit were better or worse Self-assertion, such as free suffrage introduces Self-made men? Self-unconsciousness of genius Sense of SMELL "Settler" in the form of a fact or a revolver Several false premises Shake the same bough again She who nips off the end of a brittle courtesy SIN has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all Six persons engaged in every dialogue between two Small potatoes always get to the bottom. Smiling at present follies So much must be pardoned to humanity So much woman in it,muliebrity, as well as femineity Society is a strong solution of books Society of Mutual Admiration Sold his sensibilities Somebody had been calling him an old man Something better than flowers; it is a seed-capsule Something she is ashamed of, or ought to be. Somewhere, somewhere,love is in store for them Stages of life Stupidity often saves a man from going mad Style is the man Sudden conviction that I had seen it somewhere Talk about those subjects you have had long in your mind Talkers who have what may be called jerky minds Talking is like playing on the harp Talking is one of the fine arts Talking shapes our thoughts for us Talking with a dull friend affords great relief Tears that we weep inwardly with unchanging features Temptation of money and fame is too great for young people Tepid and unstimulating expression of enthusiasm Terrible smile Thanklessness of critical honesty That great procession of the UNLOVED The Amen! of Nature is always a flower The house is quite as much the body we live in The race that shortens its weapons lengthens its boundaries The schoolmistress had tried life, too The way to argue down a vice is not to tell lies about it The year eighteen hundred and ever-so-few Their business is not a matter of sympathy, but of intellect There is a higher law in grammar, not to be put down There is almost always at least one key to this side-door There is no elasticity in a mathematical fact Think of the griefs that die unspoken! Think only in single file front this day forward Third vowel as its center This is one of those cases in which the style is the man This is the shortest way,she said Those who ask your opinion really want your praise Time is a fact To pay up, to own up, and to shut up, if beaten To trifle with the vocabulary Too late! "It might have been."Amen! Travellers change their guineas, but not their characters Triumph of the ciphering hand-organ True state of creative genius is allied to reverie, or dreaming Truth must roll, or nobody can do anything with it Truth's sharp corners get terribly rounded Truths a man carries about with him are his tools Turn over any old falsehood Unadorned and in plain calico Undertakers Unpacks and unfolds incidental illustrations Unpretending mediocrity is good Virtually old when it first makes its appearance Virtue passed through the hem of their parchment Virtues of a sporting man Vulgarism of language Wait awhile! Walls of that larger Inquisition which we call Civilization Want of ideas, want of words, want of manners We always compare ourselves with our contemporaries. We are all theological students We carry happiness into our condition We die out of houses, just as we die out of our bodies We don't read what we don't like We never tell our secrets to people that pump for them. Wedded, faded away, threw themselves away Wedding-ring conveys a right to a key to this side-door Weeded their circle pretty well of these unfortunates What a satire, by the way, is that machine What are the great faults of conversation? Whether anything can be conscious of its own flavor Whether gifted with the accident of beauty or not While she is silent, Nature is working for her Who is in advance of it or even with it Wholesale professional dealers in misfortune Why authors and actors are ashamed of being funny? Why did I not ask? you will say Will you take the long path with me? Winning-post a slab of white or gray stone Wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession. Wonder how my great trees are coming on this summer. World calls him hard names, probably World has a million roosts for a man, but only one nest. Yes, I am a man, like another Youth and agesomething in the soul THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE [Etext #2665] prabt10.txt or prabt10.zip Anonymous defamation, putting lies into people's mouths Answer him not Apologizing A very desperate habit Apology is only egotism wrong side out Celibacy of the clergy Chose a plain one, that keeps good time, and that is all Consolations of religion Conversational non-combatants Didn't know Truth was such an invalid Essence of genius is truthfulness, contact with realities Faith dislikes being meddled with Fear of open discussion implies feebleness Genius Good many coarse people in both callings Happy to agree with all their beliefs, if that were possible Hardness in surgeons, just as there is in theologians Hating ourselves as we hate our neighbors Humility is the first of the virtuesfor other people I can't afford to pay quite so much as that even for peace I will not die with a lie rattling in my throat Inclination of two persons with a strong affinity Intellectual non-combatant It is so hard to prove a negative Let him be patient with an opinion he does not accept Life becomes to them as death and death as life List of things that everybody says and nobody thinks List of things that everybody thinks and nobobody says Lurch to quackery, owing to their very loose way of evidence Meddling with things that can take care of themselves Most persons have died before they expire No company of craftsmen that did not need sharp looking after Nobody talks much that does n't say unwise things Not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth Notion of private property in truth Only condition of peace in this world is to have no ideas Opinions Out of plumb when they sit side by side Overestimate of our special individuality Pathological piety Perpetual insult to mediocrity Plenty of praying rogues and swearing saints in the world Presumption in favor of any particular belief Pseudo-science Question everything Saying one thing about it and believing another Spiritualism Surfeits of pathological piety Talk, to me, is only spading up the ground for crops of thought Talked as if I believed what I said The dead-living Took it for granted that he and his crowd were right Torturing of dying people Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble Truth never goeth without a scratcht face Way the pseudo-sciences go to work Wholesale moral arrangements are so different from retail Whoso offers me any article of belief for my signature Wider the intellect, the larger and simpler the expressions Wisdom is the abstract of the past Woman fascinates a man quite as often by what she overlooks Would you stand still in fly-time, or would you give a kick THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE [Etext #2666] ptabt10.txt or ptabt10.zip Age magnifies and aggravates persons out of due proportion Allowed a set of monks to pull their hoods over our eyes Associates facts by their accidental cohesion Authority Dogmatists Don't like the word tolerant Earnest Emptied me of all my voluntary laughter Enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth looking at Enthusiast Epicure in words Ever-ending and ever-beginning stories Fore-stick and the back-log of ancient days How does she go to work to help you? Why, she listens I talk half the time to find out my own thoughts If he knows anything, knows how little he knows Intellectual myopia Inventory of my faculties as calmly as if I were an appraiser It is a woman's business to please Knowledgeit excites prejudices to call it science Life is a fatal complaint Minds tossing on the unquiet waves of doubt More science he has the worse for his patient Most of us hope and many of us believe we shall Must not roughly smash other people's idols Never saw the man that couldn't teach me something Pedantry, triviality, and the kind of partial blindness Poetry is not an article of prime necessity, and potatoes are Poets who never write verses Privilege of wisdom to listen Province of knowledge to speak Question these charming old people before it is too late Rather too anxious that I should be comfortable Rounded back, convex with years of stooping over his minute work Said something which another had often felt but never said Satisfaction to the curious practitioner Science without common sense Scientific specialization "Sentimentality," which is sentiment overdone She always laughs and cries in the right places Some people that think everything pitiable is so funny Takes very little to spoil everything for writer, talker, lover There is nothing I do not question Two sides to everybody, as there are to that piece of money Vacuous countenances Virtues of her deceased spouse We never need fear that he will undervalue himself What have I to do with time, but to fill it up with labor? What you hate in him is chiefly misfortune Wholesale thinker who handles knowledge by the cargo Young surgeon, old physician OVER THE TEACUPS [Etext #2689] teacp10.txt or teacp10.zip Acquiescence is the best of palliations All of our brains squint more or less Alternations of overvaluation and undervaluation of ourselves At sixty we come "within range of the rifle-pits Blessed are those who have said our good things for us Cavil on the ninth part of a hair Cerebral strabismus Childishness to expect men to believe as their fathers did Consciousness is covered by layers of habitual thoughts Content to remain more or less ignorant of many things Controversialists Cracked Teacup Cultivated symptoms as other people cultivate roses Curve of health Difference in the extreme limits of lifelittle Do not be bullied out of your common sense by the specialist Do wish she would get wellor something Endure philosophically what we cannot help Enormous appetite for Old World titles of distinction Envy not the old man the tranquillity of his existence Every age has to shape the Divine image it worships over again General practitioner submits to a servitude Great privilege of old age was the getting rid of responsibility Habits are the crutches of old age He did not know so much about old age then as he does now Hoard your life as a miser hoards his money Homo unius librithe man of one book Hypocrisy of kind-hearted people I dressed his wound, and God cured him I told you so Intellectual Over-Feeding and its consequence, Mental Dyspepsia It is time to be old, To take in sail Know enough of a wide range of subjects Know something about everything, and everything about something Less you think about your health the better Man who knows too much about one particular subject Nature's kindly anodyne Never contradict a man with a squinting brain Never to countenance a wrong because others did No patience with any form of deceit or duplicity Old Men's Tears Old people have a right to be epicures, if they can afford it Old women of both sexes Outlived their usefulness Persons with a strong instinctive tendency to contradiction Pitying kindness Pleasure to mediocrity to have its superiors brought in range Presumptions Rapture of self-admiration Reached and passed the natural limit of serviceable years Remember past happiness in the hour of misery Sentenced to capital punishment for the crime of living Squinting brains Sufficient, not too much exercise Tobacco, a soothing drug Trespasser on the domain belonging to another generation Truth is lost in its own excess Unconscious plagiarism Vieille fille fait jeune mariee Voice that makes friends of everybody Wants nothing but a bald spot and a wife We must drop much of our foliage before winter is upon us Weak-eyed fountain feebly weeping over its own insignificance When one watches for symptoms, every organ in the body is ready When we think we are thinking With an effort that we admit a new author into the inner circle World was a garden to me then; it is a churchyard now Writer telling them something they have long known or felt Young Doctor, waiting for his bald spot to come ELSIE VENNER [Etext #2696] elsie10.txt or elsie10.zip All of us are more or less imaginative in our theology Appetite should be at war with no other purse than his own Attacks of spiritual neuralgia Bare hook and a coarse line are all that is needed Be polite and generous, but don't undervalue yourself Beliefs must be lived in for a good while Confession of weakness which does not wish to be strong Conscience itself requires a conscience Constituency of mediocrities of which the world is made up Cowardice may call for our most lenient judgment Criticise other people's modes of dealing with their children Despair itself would have been like an anodyne Don't begin to pry till you have got the long arm on your side Educational factory Fall silent and think they are thinking Habits, which take the place of self-determination Happiest of souls, if lethargy is bliss He almost lived in his library I dressed his wound and God healed him Judged the hearts of others by his own Leverage is everything Makes men imperious to sit a horse Matrimonial alliance, and a family of half a dozen children Means at least as much as he says Measles Mumps And Sin,that's always catching Millstone round their necks, taking it for a life-preserver? Mistake spiritual selfishness for sanctity Not quite dead enough to bury Old Doctor did not believe in medicine One angry man is as good as another One of her "I think it's sos" is worth the Bible-oath Outside observers see results; parents see processes Passive endurance is the hardest trial Priests that had no wives and no children, or none to speak of Shy of asking questions of those who know enough to destroy Slow to accept marvellous stories and many forms of superstition So long as a woman can talk, there is nothing she cannot bear Some people think that truth and gold are always to be washed for Swap him for a `yallah dog,'and then shoot the dog Talked cautiously, feeling his way for sympathy Taste of everything he carried in his saddlebags Thin film of some emotional non-conductor between them Treat bad men exactly as if they were insane Tremulous movement of the muscles, which was worse than silence We forget that weakness is not in itself a sin We must have headway on, or there will be no piloting her What a miserable thing it is to be poor Why did n't I warn him about love and all that nonsense? Widow Rowens was now in the full bloom of ornamental sorrow THE GUARDIAN ANGEL [Etext #2697] angel10.txt or angel10.zip Alas! her simple words were true,he had grown away from her Been afraid since to like almost anything Cold shower-bath the world furnishes gratis Conflicting advice of all manner of officious friends Don't be in a hurry to choose your friends Dreaded mingling with the brawlers of the market-place Easy-crying widows take new husbands soonest Getting married is jumping overboard Grief must be fed with thought, or starve to death Her only fault was that she had not grown with him I am old and incombustible enough to be trusted "I cannot help it"the hysteric motto Knew how to keep his knowledge to himself upon occasion Library gathered like his is a looking-glass Live folks are only dead folks warmed over Love does not thrive without hope Mechanical plodders and the indifferent routinists Most pathetic image in the world to many women - own tears Not handicapped with any burdensome ideals Nothing so humble that taste cannot be shown in it Patronized, which is not a pleasant feeling Picket-guard at the extreme outpost Saint may be a sinner that never got down to "hard pan" Talk without words is half their conversation Truth is only safe when diluted Turning bread and milk into the substance of little sinners WarOrganized barbarism A MORTAL ANTIPATHY [Etext #2698] antip10.txt or antip10.zip Beginners are very apt to make what they think are discoveries Charlatanism always hobbles on two crutches Doctor's wife must keep her tongue in Dying, whose eyes may light up, but rarely shed a tear Knows everything and doesn't believe anything Lecturing to instruct myself Lucky mishaps, or, more elegantly, fortunate calamities Man who knows what is in books - and what is in men Medicine deals chiefly in probabilities Nervous revolutions Never know the extent of darkness until it is partially illuminated Others took assertions on trust Perhaps I sha'n't believe in medicine enough to practise it Persons who never are youngand never old Physicians, of all men in the world, know how to wait Sagacity without which learning is a mere incumbrance Self-indulging and self-commiserating emotionalism Self-love is a cup without any bottom Shut out, not all light, but all the light they do not want Struggle with the ever-rising mists of delusion Tender spot of one or the other is carelessly handled Theological students developed a third eyelid What has the public to do with my private affairs When gratitude is a bankrupt, love only can pay his debts PASSAGES FROM AN OLD VOLUME OF LIFE [Etext #2706] pages10.txt or pages10.zip Accustomed to tread carefully among the parts of speech Are a dozen additional spasms worth living for? Fiat voluntas MEA,let my will be done Grief borne as men bear it, felt as women feel it Guides have queer notions occasionally He smiled an official smile Ill health gives a certain common character to all faces It was suggested that it might shorten life Locomotive intoxication Man is essentially an idolater New discomfort in place of an old comfort is often a luxury Officials become brutalized, I suppose, as a matter of course Patients are not the property of their physicians Philanthropists are commonly grave, occasionally grim Prediction seems to stand in need of an extension Prophecies Prophesy as much as you like, but always hedge Teach the ignorance of what people do not want to know Timid compromisers We are all egotists in sickness and debility Weakness had made him querulous MEDICAL ESSAYS [Etext #2700] medic10.txt or medic10.zip A man's ignorance is his private property Affectation vital to the well-being of society All these medications are, prima facie, injurious All they want is to be let alone An analogy is not an explanation Argumentum ad ignorantiam Assuming a falsehood as a fact, and giving reasons for it At any rate it can do no harm Bedside is always the true centre of medical teaching Beliefs are rooted in human wants and weakness, and die hard Better for mankind,and all the worse for the fishes Bewitching cup of self-quackery C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre Coincidences Colossal system of self-deception Community is still overdosed Confound belief with evidence Congenital incapacity for life Count the pulse; also note the time of day Counting only their favorable cases Cut all their throats, sweetly Diseases get well without being "cured," Dislike whatever shakes the dust out of their traditions Drugs should always be regarded as evils Dullest of teachers is the one who does not know what to omit Earned your money by the dose you have taken Exception of opium, wine, specifics, and anaesthetics Express your opinions freely; defend them rarely Extra price for gilding his rich patients' pills Extravagance in remedies and trust in remedies False appetite in many intelligences Fearless in the face of authority Find most of the old beliefs alive amongst us to-day Flippant loquacity of half knowledge Follies and inanities, imposing on the credulous Futility of attempting to silence this asserted science Generalize the disease and individualize the patient Half knowledge dreads nothing but whole knowledge Half-censure divided between the parties I am too much in earnest for either humility or vanity Ignorance is a solemn and sacred fact Imperative demand of patients and their friends Invectives against such as dared to doubt the dogmas Kept extreme remedies for extreme cases Logical errors Loud outcry on a slight touch reveals the weak spot Medical Jounals must find something to fill their columns Medical logic which does not seem to have been taught Medicines proper, which hurts a well man, hurts a sick one Much as you know, something is still left for you to learn Mutual respect of which outward courtesy is the sign Natural incapacity for sound observation No families take so little medicine as those of doctors None of my business to inquire what other persons think One whose patients are willing to die in his hands Opium, which the Creator himself seems to prescribe Over-medication are to a great extent masked by disease Pegs to hang facts upon Physician and the disease entered, hand in hand Point of mental saturation Post hoc ergo propter hoc error Presumption in favor of poisoning Presumption is always against treatments Pretensions of presumptuous ignorance Pseudological inanity Public itself, which insists on being poisoned Quackery and idolatry are all but immortal Qui a bu, boira Rapid rotation of scientific crops Save all our old treasures of knowledge and mine deeply for new Sick must have somewhat wherewith to busy their thoughts Single combats between dead authors and living housemaids Singular inability to weigh the value of testimony Special gift of the man born for a teacher Student must not be led away by the seduction of knowledge Sweeping statistical documents Take down your sign, or never put it up The withered branch of science: medicine They are not well if they do not have them Time is a very elastic element in Geology and Prophecy True meaning of the word "cure" Trust more in nature and less in their plans of interference Ubi tres medici, duo athei Vast community of quacks, with or without the diploma Vowed these gifts to the altar, and the gods saved them Vulgar love of paradox Where knowledge leaves off and ignorance begins Whether they had better live at all Why we teach so much that is not practical Wise enough to confess the fact of absolute ignorance Words that few understand and most will shortly forget Yielding to the tendency to self-delusion Young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions THE ENTIRE GUTENBERG FILES OF HOLMES [Etext #3252] ohent10.txt or ohent10.zip A nail will pick a lock that defies hatchet and hammer A little queer and uncertain in general aspect. A misprint kills a sensitive author Absolute, peremptory facts are bullies Advised every literary man to have a profession. Afraid of books who have not handled them from infancy Age and neglect united gradually Agreed on certain ultimata of belief Algebraic symbols of minds which have grown too weak All his geese are swans All men are bores, except when we want them All men love all women All the forms of moral excellence, except truth All want to reach old age and grumble when they get it And now we two are walking the long path in peace together Another privilege of talking is to misquote Arc in the movement of a large intellect As I understand truth As to clever people's hating each other As a child, he should have tumbled about in a library Asked Solon what made him dare to be so obstinate Assume a standard of judgment in our own minds At the mercy of every superior mind Audacious self-esteem, with good ground for it Automatic and involuntary actions of the mind Babbage's calculating machine Be very careful to whom you trust one of these keys Beautiful effects from wit,all the prismatic colors Been in the same precise circumstances before Behave like men and gentlemen about it, if you know how. Beliefs are rooted in human wants and weakness, and die hard Bells which small trades-people connect with their shop-doors Better for mankind,and all the worse for the fishes Better too few words, from the woman we love Bewitching cup of self-quackery Bill which will render pockets a superfluity in your next suit Blank checks of intellectual bankruptcy Bowing and nodding over the music Brain often runs away with the heart's best blood Brilliant flashesof silence! Brute beasts of the intellectual domain Bury in it beliefs, doubts, dreams, hopes, and terrors But we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. But it was in talking of Life that we came most nearly together C'est le DERNIER pas qui cote Called an old man for the first time Character is distinctly shown at the age of four months. Cigar Clairvoyance which sees into things without opening them Code of finalities is a necessary condition of profitable talk Cold shower-bath the world furnishes gratis Comfort is essential to enjoyment Commerce is just putting his granite foot upon them Common sense, as you understand it. Common sense was good enough for him Compare the racer with the trotter Conceit is just a natural thing to human minds Conceit has the virtue of making them cheerful Conclusion that he or she is really dull Conflicting advice of all manner of officious friends Consciousness of carrying a "settler" in the form of a fact Controversy Conversation which is suggestive rather than argumentative Conversational fungi spring up most luxuriantly Conversational bully Conversational blank checks or counters Conversational soprano Creative action is not voluntary at all Crippled souls Crow with a king-bird after him Cut your climate to your constitution Dangerous subjects Demand for intellectual labor is so enormous Did I believe in love at first sight? Didn't know Truth was such an invalid Differ on the fundamental principles Dishwater from the washings of English dandyism Disputing about remainders and fractions Do wish she would get wellor something Do you know how important good jockeying is to authors? Do you ever wonder why poets talk so much about flowers? Do not be bullied out of your common sense by the specialist Don't make your moral staple consist of the negative virtues Don't believe any man ever talked like that in this world Don't begin to pry till you have got the long arm on your side Don't ever think the poetry is dead in an old man Don't be in a hurry to choose your friends Doomed to the pangs of an undeceived self-estimate Dullest of teachers is the one who does not know what to omit Dulness is not commonly a game fish Earned your money by the dose you have taken Easier to dispute it than to disprove it Easier to say this than to prove it Educational factory Elysian abandonment of a huge recumbent chair. Every person's feelings have a front-door and a side-door Extra talent does sometimes make people jealous Facts always yield the place of honor, in conversation Fall silent and think they are thinking Few, if any, were ruined by drinking Flash terms for words which truly characterize their objects. Fortune is the measure of intelligence Fortune had left her, sorrow had baptized her Friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things Gambling with dice or stocks Gambling, on the great scale, is not republican Generalize the disease and individualize the patient Generally ruined before they became drunkards Genius in an essentially common person is detestable Gift of seeing themselves in the true light Give it an intellectual shake and hold it up to the light Give us the luxuries of life Good for nothing until they have been long kept and used Good feeling helps society to make liars of most of us Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris Got his hand up, as a pointer lifts his forefoot Governed, not by, but according to laws Grave without a stone where nothing but a man is buried Great silent-moving misery puts a new stamp on us Grow we must, if we outgrow all that we love Grow old early, if you would be old long Habit is a labor-saving invention Habits are the crutches of old age Half knowledge dreads nothing but whole knowledge Half-censure divided between the parties Hard it is for some people to get out of a room He did not know so much about old age then as he does now He that has once done you a kindness He who is carried by horses must deal with rogues Height of art to conceal art Her breathing was somewhat hurried and high, or thoracic Here lies buried the soul of the licentiate Pedro Garcias Hire logic, in the shape of a lawyer Hold their outspread hands over your head Holes in all her pockets Hoped he did deserve a little abuse occasionally Hopelessly dull discourse acts inductively How long will school-keeping take to kill you? Hung with moss, looking like bearded Druids Hydrostatic paradox of controversy I always believed in life rather than in books I always break down when folks cry in my face I allow no "facts " at this table I show my thought, another his I tell my secrets too easily when I am downhearted. I love horses I think I have not been attacked enough for it I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds I replied with my usual forbearance I am my own son, as it seems to me I had not thought love was ever meant for me. I hate books I have lived by the sea-shore and by the mountains I have taken all knowledge to be my province If so and so, we should have been this or that If they have run as well as they knew how! If I thought I should ever see the Alps! Il faut ne pas BRUTALISER la machine In what direction we are moving Incipit Allegoria Senectutis. Infinite ocean of similitudes and analogies Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked Insanity Intellectual companions can be found easily Is this the mighty occan?is this all? It is by little things that we know ourselves It is pleasant to be foolish at the right time Judge men's minds by comparing with mine Keep his wit in the background Key to this side-door Knowledge and timber only useful when seasoned La main de fer sous le gant de velours Laid the egg of the Reformation which Luther hatched Laughs at times at the grand airs "Science" puts on Law of the road with regard to handsome faces Leading a string of my mind's daughters to market Leap at a single bound into celebrity Learn anything twice as easily as in my earlier days Leave your friend to learn unpleasant truths from his enemies Lecturer is public property Let us cry! Liability of all men to be elected to public office Life would be nothing without paper-credit Life is maintained by the respiration of oxygen and of sentiment Like taking the cat in your lap after holding a squirrel Listen to what others say about subjects you have studied Little great man Little muscle which knows its importance Little narrow streaks of specialized knowledge Live on the reputation of the reputation they might have made Living in a narrow world of dry habits Logic Logicians carry the surveyor's chain over the track Long illness is the real vampyrism Look through the silvered rings of the arcus senilis! Love must be either rich or rosy Love is sparingly soluble in the words of men Love-capacity is a congenital endowment Lying is unprofitable Made up your mind to do when you ask them for advice Man of family Man who means to be honest for a literary pickpocket Man is father to the boy that was Man's and a woman's dusting a library Man's first life-story shall clean him out, so to speak Mathematical fact May doubt everything to-day if I will only do it civilly Meaningless blushing Mechanical invention had exhausted itself Memory is a net Men that know everything except how to make a living Men grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay Men of facts wait their turn in grim silence Men who have found new occupations when growing old Men that it weakens one to talk with an hour Men are fools, cowards, and liars all at once Might have hired an EARTHQUAKE for less money! Moralist and occasional sermonizer Most of our common, working beliefs are probabilities Moved as if all her articulations were elbow-joints Much ashamed of some people for retaining their reason Must not read such a string of verses too literally Must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it Must be weaned from his late suppers now Napoleon's test Nature dresses and undresses them Nature, who always has her pockets full of seeds Nearest approach to flying that man has ever made Neither make too much of flaws or overstatements Never forget where they have put their money No families take so little medicine as those of doctors No fresh truth ever gets into a book No man knows his own voice Nobody is so old he doesn't think he can live a year None of my business to inquire what other persons think Nutritious diet of active sympathetic benevolence Oblivion as residuary legatee Oblivion's Uncatalogued Library Odious trick of speech or manners must be got rid of. Oh, so patient she is, this imperturbable Nature! Old Age Old age appear as a series of personal insults and indignities Old jokes are dynamometers of mental tension One very sad thing in old friendships One whose patients are willing to die in his hands One doesn't like to be cruel,and yet one hates to lie One that goes in a nurse may come out an angel One can generally tell these wholesale thieves easily enough Open patches where the sun gets in and goes to sleep Oracle Original, though you have uttered it a hundred times Ought to produce insanity in every well-regulated mind Our brains are seventy-year clocks Overrate their own flesh and blood Painted there by reflection from our faces Passion never laughs People in the green stage of millionism People that make puns are like wanton boys Person is really full of information, and does not abuse it Personal incidents that call up single sharp pictures Physical necessity to talk out what is in the mind Picket-guard at the extreme outpost Plagiarism Pluck survives stamina Poem must be kept and used, like a meersehaum, or a violin Poetry, instead of making one other heart happy Poetry of words is quite as beautiful as that of sentences Poor creature that does not often repeat himself Poverty is evidence of limited capacity Power of human beings is a very strictly limited agency Power of music Pretensions of presumptuous ignorance Pride, in the sense of contemning others Probabilities Project a principle full in the face of obvious fact! Provincial conceit, which some of us must plead guilty to. Pseudo-science Pseudological inanity Public itself, which insists on being poisoned Pun is prim facie an insult Put coppers on the railroad-tracks Qu'est ce qu'il a fait? What has he done? Quackery and idolatry are all but immortal Question everything Racing horses are essentially gambling implements Rapidity with which ideas grow old in our memories Rather meet three of the scowlers than one of the smilers. Rather longer than usual dressing that morning Regained my freedom with a sigh Religious mental disturbances Remarkably intelligent audience Remarks like so many postage-stamps Returning thanks after a dinner of many courses Ribbon which has strangled so many false pretensions Sad thing to be born a sneaking fellow Saddle-leather is in some respects even preferable Saint may be a sinner that never got down to "hard pan" Saturation-point of each mind differs from that of every other Saying one thing about it and believing another Scientific certainty has no spring in it Scientific knowledge Second story projecting See if the ripe fruit were better or worse Self-assertion, such as free suffrage introduces Self-love is a cup without any bottom Self-made men? Self-unconsciousness of genius Sense of SMELL Sentenced to capital punishment for the crime of living "Sentimentality," which is sentiment overdone "Settler" in the form of a fact or a revolver Several false premises Shake the same bough again She who nips off the end of a brittle courtesy She always laughs and cries in the right places Shut out, not all light, but all the light they do not want Shy of asking questions of those who know enough to destroy SIN has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all Single combats between dead authors and living housemaids Singular inability to weigh the value of testimony Six persons engaged in every dialogue between two Slow to accept marvellous stories and many forms of superstition Small potatoes always get to the bottom. Smiling at present follies So long as a woman can talk, there is nothing she cannot bear So much woman in it,muliebrity, as well as femineity So much must be pardoned to humanity Society is a strong solution of books Society of Mutual Admiration Sold his sensibilities Some people that think everything pitiable is so funny Some people think that truth and gold are always to be washed for Somebody had been calling him an old man Something she is ashamed of, or ought to be Something better than flowers; it is a seed-capsule Somewhere, somewhere,love is in store for them Stages of life Struggle with the ever-rising mists of delusion Stupidity often saves a man from going mad Style is the man Sudden conviction that I had seen it somewhere Takes very little to spoil everything for writer, talker, lover Talk about those subjects you have had long in your mind Talk, to me, is only spading up the ground for crops of thought Talk without words is half their conversation Talkers who have what may be called jerky minds Talking with a dull friend affords great relief Talking is like playing on the harp Talking is one of the fine arts Talking shapes our thoughts for us Tears that we weep inwardly with unchanging features Temptation of money and fame is too great for young people Tepid and unstimulating expression of enthusiasm Terrible smile Thanklessness of critical honesty That great procession of the UNLOVED The house is quite as much the body we live in The schoolmistress had tried life, too The Amen! of Nature is always a flower The race that shortens its weapons lengthens its boundaries The year eighteen hundred and ever-so-few The way to argue down a vice is not to tell lies about it Their business is not a matter of sympathy, but of intellect There is no elasticity in a mathematical fact There is a higher law in grammar, not to be put down There is almost always at least one key to this side-door Think only in single file front this day forward Think of the griefs that die unspoken! Third vowel as its center This is the shortest way,she said This is one of those cases in which the style is the man Those who ask your opinion really want your praise Time is a fact To trifle with the vocabulary To pay up, to own up, and to shut up, if beaten Too late! "It might have been."Amen! Travellers change their guineas, but not their characters Triumph of the ciphering hand-organ True state of creative genius is allied to reverie, or dreaming Truth must roll, or nobody can do anything with it Truth is only safe when diluted Truth's sharp corners get terribly rounded Truths a man carries about with him are his tools Turn over any old falsehood Unadorned and in plain calico Undertakers Unpacks and unfolds incidental illustrations Unpretending mediocrity is good Virtually old when it first makes its appearance Virtue passed through the hem of their parchment Virtues of a sporting man Vulgarism of language Wait awhile! Walls of that larger Inquisition which we call Civilization Want of ideas, want of words, want of manners We die out of houses, just as we die out of our bodies We always compare ourselves with our contemporaries. We are all theological students We carry happiness into our condition We don't read what we don't like We never tell our secrets to people that pump for them. Wedded, faded away, threw themselves away Wedding-ring conveys a right to a key to this side-door Weeded their circle pretty well of these unfortunates What a satire, by the way, is that machine What are the great faults of conversation? Whether anything can be conscious of its own flavor Whether gifted with the accident of beauty or not While she is silent, Nature is working for her Who is in advance of it or even with it Wholesale professional dealers in misfortune Why authors and actors are ashamed of being funny? Why did I not ask? you will say Will you take the long path with me? Winning-post a slab of white or gray stone Wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession. Wonder how my great trees are coming on this summer. World calls him hard names, probably World has a million roosts for a man, but only one nest. Yes, I am a man, like another Young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions Youth and agesomething in the soul End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Widger's Quotations from the Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., by David Widger | |
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