A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

A man is usually more careful of his money than of his principles.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

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

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time, at the peril of being not to have lived.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Beware how you take away hope from any human being.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Carve every word before you let it fall.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Don't be 'consistent,' but be simply true.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Every event that a man would master must be mounted on the run, and no man ever caught the reins of a thought except as it galloped past him.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I despise making the most of one's time. Half of the pleasures of life consist of the opportunities one has neglected.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

It seems to me that at this time we need education in the obvious more than the investigation of the obscure.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Man's mind, stretched by a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.