Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Mean Quotations

To be civilized is to be potentially master of all possible ideas, and that means that one has got beyond being shocked, although one preserves one's own moral aesthetic preferences.

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.

When a man holds his tongue it does not signify much. But when a woman dispenses with the office of the mighty member, when she sheathed her natural weapon at a trying moment, it means that she trusts to still more formidable enginery; to tears it may be, a solvent more powerful than that with which Hannibal softened the alpine rocks...

To rest upon a formula is a slumber that, prolonged, means death.

Leisure only means a chance to do other jobs that demand attention.

Reason means truth and those who are not governed by it take the chance that someday the sunken fact will rip the bottom out of their boat.