Quotes from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Our morality seems to be only a check on the ultimate domination of force, just as our politeness is a check on the impulse of every pig to put his feet in the trough.

A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command the latter.

Every year, if not every day, we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge.

The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.

To know is not less than to feel.

To live is to function. That is all there is in living.

Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our father's have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a large part than what we suspect of what we think.

On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself, as against the saints who deny it.