Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Real Quotations

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

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.

Old age is like an opium dream. Nothing seems real except the unreal.

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.

Men are tattooed with their special beliefs like so many South Sea Islanders; but a real human heart with divine love in it beats with the same glow under all the patterns of all earth's thousand tribes.

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.