Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Quotes

Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so.

Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.

If you can eat sawdust without butter, you can be a success in the law.

Beware how you take away hope from another human being.

I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.

The language of judicial decision is mainly the language of logic. And the logical method and form flatter that longing for certainty and for repose which is in every human mind. But certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.

The greatest act of faith is when a man understands he is not God.

Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.

The great act of faith is when a man decides he is not God.

Young men know the rules, but old men know the exceptions.

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.

The mark of a civilized man is his willingness to re-examine his most cherished beliefs.

This is a court of law, not a court of justice.

Be willing to commit yourself to a course, perhaps a long and hard one, without being able to foresee exactly where you will come out.

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.

A new untruth is better than an old truth.

Even for practical purposes theory generally turns out the most important thing in the end.