Oliver Wendell Holmes

The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.

Rough work, iconoclasm, but the only way to get at truth.

A new untruth is better than an old truth.

Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light.

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.

A goose flies by a chart which the Royal Geographical Society could not mend.

Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.

I hate facts. I always say the chief end of man is to form general propositions - adding that no general proposition is worth a damn.

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.

Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left.

The Amen of nature is always a flower.

A few can touch the magic string, and noisy fame is proud to win them: Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them!

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.

Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.

Controversy equalizes fools and wise men - and the fools know it.

Men do not quit playing because they grow old they grow old because they quit playing.

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

Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel.

Beware how you take away hope from another human being.

Don't you stay at home of evenings? Don't you love a cushioned seat in a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your feet?