Dr. J. A. Holmes Quotes

The great end of being is to harmonize man with the order of things, and the church has been a good pitch-pipe, and may be so still.

There are many things which we can afford to forget which it is yet well to learn.

Science ... in other words, knowledge-is not the enemy of religion; for, if so, then religion would mean ignorance. But it is often the antagonist of school-divinity.

Any tax is a discouragement and therefore a regulation so far as it goes.

Men must turn square corners when they deal with the Government.

Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith.

What drives me is the prospect of turning an obstacle into a business opportunity, and then growing that into something lasting and rewarding.

Email is familiar. It's comfortable. It's easy to use. But it might just be the biggest killer of time and productivity in the office today.

He is not a bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. He has one positive virtue. He is as brave as a bulldog and as tenacious as a lobster if he gets his claws upon anyone.

Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.

Trouble makes us one with every human being in the world - and unless we touch others, we're out of touch with life.

We should daily feel a deeper union with Life, a greater sense of that Indwelling God - the God of the seen and of the unseen - within us.

Nothing like the road to rub all the sand out of your soul.

But all I could think of was taking some books to read in jail. I held everybody up, choosing which ones to take.

When you constantly hear people talking about going the distance, going the distance, you can't help but wonder about it. I learned a lesson: next time I will fight my fight without that doubt.

Prayer, to the thinking person, is almost inescapable.

people who understand grammar always have a keen sense of the ridiculous.

Experience is a thorough teacher.

It doesn't matter matter how many yards you ran for last year. You've got to do it again.

Chess is a time game, it’s a game of patience. That pretty much defines how I run the ball.

[Science is] piecemeal revelation.

The truth is that the whole system of beliefs which comes in with the story of the fall of man ... is gently falling out of enlightened human intelligence.

The sea drowns out humanity and time. It has no sympathy with either, for it belongs to eternity; and of that it sings its monotonous song forever and ever.

Simple people... are very quick to see the live facts which are going on about them.

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

Society is always trying in some way to grind us down to a single flat surface.

Men, like peaches and pears, grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay.

Deep-seated preferences cannot be argued about - you cannot argue a man into liking a glass of beer.

Free competition is worth more to society than it costs.

Blood is a destiny. One's genius descends in the stream from long lines of ancestry.

In my opinion, economists and sociologists are the people to whom we ought to turn more than we do for instruction in the grounds and foundations of all rational decisions.

The joy of life is to put out one's power in some natural and useful or harmless way. There is no other. And the real misery is not to do this.

If wine tells truth - and so have said the wise, It makes me laugh to think how brandy lies!

Systems die; instincts remain.

Research and writing are lonely occupations. It is easy to become discouraged in solitary confinement.

It's a good thing to be rich and a good thing to be strong, but it is a better thing to be beloved of many friends.

The wind blows out, the bubble dies; The spring entomb'd in autumn lies; The dew dries up; the star is shot; The flight is past, and man forgot.

Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.

Most of us retain enough of the theological attitude to think that we are little gods.

Social media is the future, with employers recognizing they need to start hiring people with the right skills.

I'm motivated by solving new and challenging problems, especially ones that people say can't or shouldn't be tackled.

Not using social media in the workplace, in fact, is starting to make about as much sense as not using the phone or email.

It may be coincidence that the decline of newspapers has corresponded with the rise of social media. Or maybe not.

The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action I can recall in our association. I was alone.

We must think things not words, or at least we must constantly translate our words into the facts for which they stand, if we are to keep to the real and the true.

Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.

I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy - I don't disparage envy, but I don't accept it as legitimately my master.

We are not depending on a reed shaken by the wind, but on the Priniciple of Life Itself, for all that we have or ever shall need. It is not some Power, or a great Power, it is all power.

I'll be glad to leave here. I feel like eating palm trees. I don't like this place. It's for people with arthritis. They come here to play golf and to die.

The universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly. It is simply indifferent