“I think that as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., “In Our Youth Our Hearts Were Touched With Fire,” Memorial Day address, Keene, New Hampshire. (30 May 1884)
“It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., “The Path of the Law,” Address to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts at the dedication of the new hall of the Boston University School of Law on (8 January 1897)
“Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than what we suspect of what we think.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., “The Path of the Law,” Address to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts at the dedication of the new hall of the Boston University School of Law on (8 January 1897)
“Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., “Early Forms of Liability,” Lecture I from The Common Law.
“Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., “The Path of Law” 10 Harvard Law Review 457 (1897)
“Eloquence may set fire to reason.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
“Eloquence may set fire to reason.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Gitlow v. People of New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925)
“The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
“The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (3 March 1919)
“We see what you are driving at, but you have not said it, and therefore we shall go on as before.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Johnson v. United States, 163 F. 30 (1st Cir. 1908)
“Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., “Natural Law“, The Harvard Law Review (1918)
“A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Towne vs. Eisner, 245 U.S. 418, 425 (1918-01-07)
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