Oliver Wendell Holmes

“When you write in prose you say what you mean. When you write in rhyme you say what you must.”

“A minister is coming down every generation nearer and nearer to the common level of the useful citizen - no oracle at all, but a man of more than average moral instincts, who if he knows any...”

“Men are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; they always did, they always will, and if you don't make it of wood, you must make it of w...”

“The reward of the general is not a bigger tent, but command.”

“Life is a great bundle of little things.”

“Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that; one stitch at a time taken patiently, and the pattern will come out all right, lik...”

“Don't be consistent, but be simply true.”

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

“Nature is in earnest when she makes a woman.”

“Man has his will, - but woman has her way.”

“When the style is fully formed, if it has a sweet undersong, we call it beautiful, and the writer may do what he likes in words or syntax.”

“It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.”

“When I think of talking, it is of course with a woman. For talking at its best being an inspiration, it wants a corresponding divine quality of receptiveness, and where will you find this bu...”