Quotes from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The riders in a race do not stop short when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter before coming to a standstill. There is time to hear the kind voice of friends and to say to one's self: "The work is done."

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.

Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else.

One unquestioned text we read, All doubt beyond, all fear above; Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed Can burn or blot it: God is Love.

Every calling is great when greatly pursued.

Life is a romantic business, but you have to make the romance.

Heredity is an omnibus in which all our ancestors ride, and every now and then one of them puts his head out and embarrasses us.

A man is a kind of inverted thermometer, the bulb uppermost, and the column of self-valuation is all the time going up and down.

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 words.

Lawyers spend a great deal of time shovelling smoke.

Life is action and passion; therefore, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of the time, at peril of being judged not to have lived.

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