The rule of joy and the law of duty seem to me all one.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

A new untruth is better than an old truth.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The greatest act of faith is when a man understands he is not God.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Even for practical purposes theory generally turns out the most important thing in the end.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I despise making the most of one's time. Half of the pleasures of life consist of the opportunities one has neglected.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself, as against the saints who deny it.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The great act of faith is when a man decides he is not God.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The rules of evidence in the main are based on experience, logic, and common sense, less hampered by history than some parts of the substantive law.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command the latter.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Men must turn square corners when they deal with the Government.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Every calling is great when greatly pursued.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

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.