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Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

91 quotes

“There are not infrequent times when a bottle of wine, a good dinner, a girl of some trivial sort can fill the hour for me.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1843 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to William James, as quoted in Henry James: The Untried Years: 1843-1870 (1953) by Leon Edel, p. 229.
“Get down, you fool!”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Assertion famously directed at then-President Abraham Lincoln when he came under enemy fire at Fort Stevens during the American Civil War, as quoted in Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005) by D…
“But as precedents survive like the clavicle in the cat, long after the use they once served is at an end, and the reason for them has been forgotten, the result of following them must often be failure and confusion from the merely logical point of view.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Common Carriers and the Common Law," 13 Am. Law Rev. 608, 630 (1879).
“It is the merit of the common law that it decides the case first and determines the principle afterwards.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1870 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Codes, and the Arrangement of the Law," 5 Am. L. Rev. 1, 1 (1870).
“The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience... The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Common Law (1881), p. 1.
“The degree of civilization which a people has reached, no doubt, is marked by their anxiety to do as they would be done by.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“State interference is an evil, where it cannot be shown to be a good.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for the country in return.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1895 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Soldier's Faith" Memorial Day address at Harvard University (30 May 1895).
“Free competition is worth more to society than it costs.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1077 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Vegelahn v. Guntner, 167 Mass. 92, 44 N.E. 1077, 1080 (1896) (Supreme Court of Massachusetts, Holmes dissenting).
“One of the eternal conflicts out of which life is made up is that between the effort of every man to get the most he can for his services, and that of society, disguised under the name of capital, to get his services for the least possible return.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. (1841–1935) first seen 1897 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Path of the Law," Address to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts at the dedication of the new hall of the Boston University School of Law (8 January 1897), published in Harvard Law Review, Vol. 10 (25 March …
“The aim of the law is not to punish sins, but is to prevent certain external results.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1897 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Commonwealth v. Kennedy, 170 Mass. 18, 20 (1897) (opinion of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts).
“Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the rational study of the law the blackletter man may be the man of the present, but the man of the future is the man of statistics and the master of economics.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you want to know the law and nothing else, you must look at it as a bad man, who cares only for the material consequences which such knowledge enables him to predict, not as a good one, who finds his reasons for conduct, whether inside the law or outside of it, in the vaguer sanctions of conscience.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life. Its history is the history of the moral development of the race.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How odious a virtue the much praised simplicity. The only simplicity for which I would give a straw is that which is on the other side of the complex — not that which never has divined it.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1902 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in a letter to Lady Pollock dated October 14, 1902
“One has to try to strike the jugular and let the rest go.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1899 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on the death of Walbridge Abner Field, Chief Justice of Massachusetts (25 November 1899), reported in Speeches by Oliver Wendell Holmes (1900), p. 77.
“Nature has but one judgment on wrong conduct — if you can call that a judgment which seemingly has no reference to conduct as such — the judgment of death.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1902 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address at the dedication of the Northwestern University Law School Building, Chicago, Illinois (20 October 1902); republished in Holmes' Collected Legal Papers (1937), p. 272.
“Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1111 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reportedly first said by Holmes in a speech in 1904, alternately phrased as "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, including the chance to insure", Compania General De Tabacos De Filipinas v. Collector of Interna…
“Great cases like hard cases make bad law. For great cases are called great, not by reason of their importance in shaping the law of the future, but because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgement.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1904 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197, 400-401 (1904).
“Constitutions are intended to preserve practical and substantial rights, not to maintain theories.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1904 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Davis v. Mills, 194 U.S. 451, 457 (1904).
“I can't help preferring champagne to ditch water — I doubt if the universe does.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to William James (24 March 1907); this was misquoted as "I happen to prefer champagne to ditchwater, but there is no reason to suppose that the cosmos does" in "Our Mission Statement" by William F. Buckley, Jr., …
“The great act of faith is when a man decides that he is not God.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to William James (24 March 1907).
“Philosophy may have gained by the attempts in recent years to look through the fiction to the fact and to generalize corporations, partnerships, and other groups into a single conception. But to generalize is to omit, and, in this instance, to omit one characteristic of the complete corporation, as called into being under modern statutes, that is most important in business and law.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1908 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Donnell v. Herring-Hall-Marvin Safe Co., 208 U.S. 267, 273 (1908).
“The major premise of the conclusion expressed in a statute, the change of policy that induces the enactment, may not be set out in terms, but it is not an adequate discharge of duty for courts to say: We see what you are driving at, but you have not said it, and therefore we shall go on as before.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1908 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Johnson v. United States, 163 F. 30 (1st Cir. 1908) (Justice Holmes sitting by designation as a judge of the First Circuit).
“Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Early Forms of Liability," Lecture I from The Common Law. (1909).
“Every opinion tends to become a law.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A Constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory . . . It is made for people of fundamentally differing views, and the accident of our finding certain opinions natural and familiar, or novel, and even shocking, ought not to conclude our judgment upon the question whether statutes embodying them conflict with the Constitution of the United States.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“General propositions do not decide concrete cases.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The liberty of the citizen to do as he likes so long as he does not interfere with the liberty of others to do the same, which has been a shibboleth for some well known writers, is interfered with by school laws, by the Post Office, by every state or municipal institution which takes his money for purposes thought desirable, whether he likes it or not.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now and then, an extraordinary case may turn up, but constitutional law, like other mortal contrivances, has to take some chances, and in the great majority of instances, no doubt, justice will be done.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Blinn v. Nelson, 222 U.S. 1, 7 (1911).
“Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to the Harvard Alumni Association to the Class of '61, in Speeches (1913), p. 96.
“Life is a roar of bargain and battle, but in the very heart of it there rises a mystic spiritual tone that gives meaning to the whole. It transmutes the dull details into romance. It reminds us that our only but wholly adequate significance is as parts of the unimaginable whole. It suggests that even while living we are living to ends outside ourselves”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to the Harvard Alumni Association to the Class of '61, in Speeches (1913), p. 96.
“Life is action, the use of one's powers. As to use them to their height is our joy and duty, so it is the one end that justifies itself.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Bar Association of Boston, in Speeches (1913), p. 85.
“With all humility, I think, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." Infinitely more important than the vain attempt to love one's neighbor as one's self. If you want to hit a bird on the wing, you must have all your will in focus, you must not be thinking about yourself, and equally, you must not be thinking about your neighbor: you must be living in your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird on the wing.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Bar Association of Boston, in Speeches (1913), p. 85.
“Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Bar Association of Boston, in Speeches (1913), p. 86.
“Whatever disagreement there may be as to the scope of the phrase "due process of law" there can be no doubt that it embraces the fundamental conception of a fair trial, with opportunity to be heard.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1915 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Frank v. Magnum, 237 U.S. 309, 347 (1915).
“The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky, but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that can be identified; although some decisions with which I have disagreed seem to me to have forgotten the fact.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1917 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Southern Pacific Company v. Jensen 244 U.S. 205, 222 (1917) (Holmes, J., dissenting; opinion published (21 May 1917).
“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 the time in which it is used.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Towne vs. Eisner, 245 U.S. 418, 425 (7 January 1918).
“The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (3 March 1919).
“The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (3 March 1919).
“The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree. When a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (3 March 1919).
“Vanity is the most philosophical of those feelings that we are taught to despise. For vanity recognizes that if a man is in a minority of one we lock him up, and therefore longs for an assurance from others that one's work has not been in vain.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As I grow older I grow calm. If I feel what are perhaps an old man's apprehensions, that competition from new races will cut deeper than working men's disputes and will test whether we can hang together or can fight.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think it not improbable that man, like the grub that prepares a chamber for the winged thing it never has seen but is to be — that man may have cosmic destinies that he does not understand.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do not think the United States would come to an end if we lost our power to declare an Act of Congress void. I do think the Union would be imperiled if we could not make that declaration as to the laws of the several States.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source