Today is the 201st birthday of American physician, professor, lecturer, and author Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (August 29, 1809—October 7, 1894.)
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. briefly studied law before turning to the medical profession. As a teacher of medicine at Dartmouth and Harvard, he initiated and advocated far-reaching medical reforms. He is the father of the renowned American jurist and Civil War officer, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Throughout his life, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. wrote poetry, novels, and essays. His peers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell, regarded Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. as one of the best writers of the 19th century. His most famous works include The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858), The Professor of the Breakfast-Table (1860,) and The Poet of the Breakfast-Table (1872) and the biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1884.)
Inspirational Quotations by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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 out of wood, you must make it out of words.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)
The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a deal longer.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)
Knowledge and timber shouldn’t be much used, till they are seasoned.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)
Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the other water-power; that is all.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)
Now habit is a labor-saving invention which enables a man to get along with less fuel.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)
Be polite and generous, but don’t undervalue yourself. You will be useful, at any rate; you may just as well be happy, while you are about it.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)
He must be a poor creature that does not often repeat himself. Imagine the author of the excellent piece of advice, “Know thyself,” never alluding to that sentiment again during the course of a protracted existence!
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)
I talk half the time to find out my own thoughts, as a school-boy turns his pockets inside out to see what is in them. One brings to light all sorts of personal property he had forgotten in his inventory.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)
A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. It has come to you over a new route, by a new and express train of associations.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)
Knowledge—it excites prejudices to call it science—is advancing as irresistibly, as majestically, as remorselessly as the ocean moves in upon the shore.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)