Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was an American jurist. He served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America from 1902 to 1932. Holmes was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 8, 1841. He was born to the prominent physician Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and Amelia Lee Jackson.
Dr Holmes was a prominent figure in the intellectual and literary circles of Boston. Henry James Sr. and Ralph Waldo Emerson were family friends. Holmes was known as "Wendell" in his youth. He grew up in an atmosphere of intellectual achievement. While staying at Harvard College, he wrote essays on philosophical themes. He even asked Emerson to read his attack on Plato's idealist philosophy.
He was known for his long service in the United States Supreme Court. He was known for his opinions on civil liberties and American constitutional democracy. Holmes retired from the court at the age of 90. He previously served as an Associate Justice and Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. He was also the Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
During his tenure on the Supreme Court, he supported economic regulation and freedom of speech under the First Amendment. His positions, as well as his personality and writing style made him a popular figure. He was identified as the third-most cited American legal scholar of the 20th century by the Journal of Legal Studies. He left for heavenly abode on March 6, 1935. Below are some of the best Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Quotes.
The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.
It doesn't matter where you are standing. All that matters is in what direction you are moving. What this means is that you may be at your lowest in life. However, this should not refrain you from getting up and moving in the right direction. You may be in the best or worst situation, but it's all good if you are moving in the right direction.
Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
Home is that place we all love. It's that physical space where some amazing relationships are built. However, it's not just a physical space because it will always reside in the deepest corner of your heart. You may physically move away from your home, but your heart will yearn and long always for the love you got there.
One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
Once you encounter a new idea, your mind is hard to regain its self back. That's because ideas have a significant effect on one's mind. Once your mind expands in the direction of something politically correct or real, you are going to find it hard to regain yourself back.
A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.
Moments may look very short and crisp in the larger gamut of life experience. Yet just one moment of your life can give you the joy and happiness of a lifetime. Even if you carefully recapitulate that moment and take insights from it, you will realize how beautiful one moment can look!
The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.
A young person lacks severely when it comes to something like experience. A younger generation person may know all the rules and regulations concerning life. Yet when it comes to some exceptions, then they would severely lack information. This is so because the only experience can make you aware of exceptions. This means only people who are old can guide you in that case!
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Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.
Money is not something that one can call trustworthy. It's transient, can come and go and has no guarantee. In this scenario, it's always better that we don't trust money. Rather we should always put our money in trust. This means that trust is lifelong as compared to something temporary like wealth. So if it takes money to build trust, do that!
Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up.
Ideas should move from the mind of the person where they originated to others as well. If they stay restricted only where they sprang up, there are fewer chances of them being polished. If they are deliberated upon by others and are frequently questioned and debated, the chances are that they may also give birth to other beautiful ideas.
Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else.
You cannot achieve fame by simply thinking about it all the time. We all must have seen that the most brilliant and famous people are the ones who never imagined that they would ever become famous. Fame in that manner can be called a hidden treasure which only those people get who think the least about it.
Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.
Language is crucial to everyone around us. It's just like the blood of our soul into which thoughts run. What this means is that just as all the life-sustaining fluids run in the veins of a person, or more specifically in blood. Similarly, thoughts run through the medium of language. If there's no language, there would be no thoughts and no way for them to grow.
Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.
Love is the key that opens all gates of happiness. It's an emotion that makes sure you get happiness throughout your life. It's so interesting to see that love is the mother of all emotions. It gives birth to the joys and happiness in life. Thus, it's a key that opens the lock of the gate of joy.
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Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.
Taxes are crucial to uphold the values of a truly civilized society. We pay taxes because the government further uses them in the state to take a good decision. This decision can be something that can bring a positive change in the lives of common folks. Thus, we all must pay taxes on time. Paying taxes is a way to strengthen the values of a good governance system.
Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked.
There's a huge difference between being stumbled upon and kicked. However, some humans don't realize it. We should be able to differentiate between the two. Kicking is deliberate and filled with anger and hatred for someone else. This is in opposition to stumbling, which just happens accidentally. If a dog can know the difference between the two, humans should learn it too!
A child's education should begin at least 100 years before he was born.
Education is something that cannot have a fixed duration. Rather, it would be correct to say that a child's education should begin 100 years prior to being born. This is a way to reiterate the importance of foundation laying in the education of a child. A child needs a basic level of understanding before he can dive into complex things. Thus, education and the child should have an early formed connection.
A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.
Wendell is telling us about the nature of a word. Languages and words are both transitionally variant. They are never fixed and vary greatly in nature. A word is not like a crystal that's smooth, transparent and unchanged. Words are rather like the skin of a living thought that will vary greatly in nature and colour. Its content will change and make way for something new.
We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.
Opinions are weapons in our minds. Especially when it comes to our own opinions, we feel that they are just perfect. Yet, that's never the case. You should always stay vigilant while freely asserting your opinions. Look for moments when you feel like aggressively using your opinions against others. Look for moments when your delusional opinion is leaving little space for others to express their own!
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Every calling is great when greatly pursued.
Every small calling by our loved ones or any opportunity should be taken seriously. A calling, no matter how small, should be greatly pursued. Consider yourself getting a call from someone for a job. If you assume it being great, it will turn out to be great. Thus, it is correct to say that your understanding of a calling will give it the label of being great.
To have doubted one's first principles is the mark of a civilized man.
A civilized man will never stay in this false imagined bubble of being the epitome of civilization. That's because nothing is flawless or perfect. Rather a truly civilized man questions the entire notion of him being civilized. If you doubt yourself and your aspect of civilization, you are truly one!
The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.
How do you make some meticulous laws? You make them by not thinking from a logical lens. You rather make them by looking at precedents. This means that our personal opinions or logic can never make laws. They have to be made through the experiences of people who have seen significant kinds of happenings in the world.
The first requirement of a sound body of law is, that it should correspond with the actual feelings and demands of the community, whether right or wrong.
You cannot survive in a community by living with your selfish needs. You will have to compromise and let your needs correspond with that of your community. It's the first requirement of a sound human body to have feelings and emotions that can adapt themselves as per the needs of the community. No selfish attitude can succeed in building a strong community.
Young man, the secret of my success is that at an early age I discovered that I was not God.
The younger generation often puts itself into the trap of delusion. They start thinking that they are Gods and, like them, can do anything. However, that's not the case. Wendell is trying to show us the difference between a person who achieves success and who doesn't. If you consider yourself already perfect like God, you can never succeed.
