Quotes from Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.

And if I should live to be The last leaf upon the tree In the spring, Let them smile, as I do now, At the old forsaken bough Where I cling.

Yes, child of suffering, thou may'st well be sure He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor!

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.

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

Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.

Do not be bullied out of your common sense by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant.

Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easily of all, the gate of fear.

The Amen of nature is always a flower.

We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them, he will still feel as the famous woman did about ghosts, Je n'y crois pas, mais je les crains, — "I don't believe in them, but I am afraid of them, nevertheless."

The man who is always worrying about whether or not his soul would be damned generally has a soul that isn't worth a damn.

Stupidity often saves a man from going mad.