Oliver Wendell Holmes

Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up.

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.

Everybody likes and respects self-made men. It is a great deal better to be made in that way than not to be made at all.

I should like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a gorilla, that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of.

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

The movements of exaltation which belong to genius are egotistic by their very nature. A calm, clear mind, not subject to the spasms and crises which are so often met with in creative or intensely perceptive natures, is the best basis for love or friendship. - Observe, I am talking about minds. I won't say, the more intellect, the less capacity for loving; for that would do wrong to the understanding and reason; - but on the other hand, that the brain runs away with the heart's best blood, which gives the world a few pages of wisdom or sentiment or poetry, instead of making one other heart happy, I have no question.

The hat is the ultimum moriens of respectability.

A few can touch the magic string, And noisy Fame is proud to win them; Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them!

Their discords sting through Burns and Moore, Like hedgehogs dressed in lace.

There is no friend like the old friend who has shared our morning days, No greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise; Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold; But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.