(source)
|
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
(8 Mar 1841 - 6 Mar 1935)
American physician who served as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1902-32), noted as a liberal and for frequently being in disagreement with the conservative majority. Holmes laid the groundwork for the modern laws in America regarding free speech. His writings, speeches, essays, letters, and judicial opinions Holmes are intelligent, thought-provoking and eloquent.
|
Science Quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (5 quotes)
A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure. It offers a necessity of life that must be rationed among those who have power over it.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Writing for the Court, New Jersey v. New York, et al., 283 U.S. 336, 342 (1931), His ruling declared that the water of the Delaware River must be divided among states on a basis of need, rather than on the geographic mileage of the resource controlled by each state. Thus a river was to be regarded as a shared economic treasure. An upstream state must not willy-nilly deprive a downstream state of an important water resource. As quoted and explained in Tim Palmer, Endangered Rivers and the Conservation Movement (2004), 42.
A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
In Towne v. Eisner (1918), 245 U.S. 425. As quoted in Richard A. Posner (ed.), The Essential Holmes: Selections from the Letters, Speeches, Judicial Opinions, and Other Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1992), 287.
Our Constitution … is an experiment as all life is an experiment.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
From Dissent in Abrams v. U.S., p. 304, quoted in Saturday Review (1929), 6, 582.
There are many things which we can afford to forget which it is yet well to learn.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Valedictory Address to the Graduating Class of the Bellevue Hospital College (2 Mar 1871), New York Medical Journal (1871), 422.
To have doubted one’s own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
'Ideals and Doubts,' Illinois Law Review (1915), 10. In Collected Legal Papers (1920), 307.
See also:
- 8 Mar - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Holmes's birth.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., by G. Edward White. - book suggestion.
- Booklist for Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
