The Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes: The autocrat of the breakfast-tablePrinted at the Riverside Press, 1891 |
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Page 1
... minds is under the heads of arithmetical and algebraical in- tellects . All economical and practical wisdom is an extension or variation of the following arithmetical formula : 2 + 2 = 4 . Every philosophical proposition has the more ...
... minds is under the heads of arithmetical and algebraical in- tellects . All economical and practical wisdom is an extension or variation of the following arithmetical formula : 2 + 2 = 4 . Every philosophical proposition has the more ...
Page 5
... minds have a horror of what are commonly called " facts . " They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain ... mind . The reader will , of course , understand the precise amount of seasoning which must be added to it before he ...
... minds have a horror of what are commonly called " facts . " They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain ... mind . The reader will , of course , understand the precise amount of seasoning which must be added to it before he ...
Page 6
... minds . Their thoughts do not run in the natural order of sequence . They say bright things on all possible subjects , but their zigzags rack you to death . After a jolting half- hour with one of these jerky companions , talking with a ...
... minds . Their thoughts do not run in the natural order of sequence . They say bright things on all possible subjects , but their zigzags rack you to death . After a jolting half- hour with one of these jerky companions , talking with a ...
Page 10
... minds as a centre is to a circle . But little - minded people's thoughts move in such small circles that five minutes ' conversation gives you an are long enough to determine their whole curve . An arc in the move- ment of a large ...
... minds as a centre is to a circle . But little - minded people's thoughts move in such small circles that five minutes ' conversation gives you an are long enough to determine their whole curve . An arc in the move- ment of a large ...
Page 11
... minds ? Let me lay down the law upon the subject . Life and language are alike sacred . Homicide and verbicide - that is , violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning , which is its life are alike forbidden ...
... minds ? Let me lay down the law upon the subject . Life and language are alike sacred . Homicide and verbicide - that is , violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning , which is its life are alike forbidden ...
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American elm asked asphyxia beauty beneath Benjamin Franklin better boarders bombazine brain call John chair cheroot comes commonly conversation course dandyism dear divinity-student Doctors of Divinity doubt dream England town English elms eyes face fact falchion fancy feel feet flowers French language green grow hand head hear heard heart horse Houyhnhnm human hundred intellectual kind lady landlady's daughter laugh lecture lips literary living long path look man's mean meerschaum ment mind morning Nature never o'er old age old gentleman opposite OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES once perhaps person poem poets poor Professor remarks remember round rowlocks schoolmistress seen smile sometimes soul speak spring stone story suppose sweet talk tell things thought tion told trees truth turned verses voice walk waves woman words write young fellow youth
Popular passages
Page 97 - This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main, — The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
Page 98 - Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
Page 98 - The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl, Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell...
Page 255 - For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, And the floor was just as strong as the sills And the panels just as strong as the floor, And the whipple-tree neither less nor more, And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore.
Page 253 - T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." So the Deacon inquired of the village folk Where he could find the strongest oak, That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke, — That was for spokes and floor and sills; He sent for lancewood to make the thills; The crossbars were ash, from the straightest...
Page 269 - ... value for their power to please, And selfish churls deride ; — One Stradivarius, I confess, Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess. Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn, Nor ape the glittering upstart fool ; — Shall not carved tables serve my turn, But all must be of buhl ? Give grasping pomp its double share, — I ask but one recumbent chair. Thus humble let me live and die, Nor long for Midas...
Page 309 - If it please the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and the thing seem right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman the...
Page 98 - Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings :Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Page 93 - I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving...
Page 69 - Why, yes ; for memory would recall My fond paternal joys ; I could not bear to leave them all ; I'll take — my — girl — and — boys ! The smiling angel dropped his pen, — " Why this will never do ; The man would be a boy again, And be a father too...