Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.1841–1935The quotations of
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
American jurist (1841–1935); US Supreme Court justice from 1902 to 1932
1841–1935
35 quotes, most often on Laws, Government and Life & Death.
- Holmes-Laski Letters : The Correspondence of Mr. Justice Holmes and Harold J. Laski, 1916—1935 (1953), Vol. 2, p. 942.
- Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (3 March 1919).
The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.
Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (3 March 1919).- Vegelahn v. Guntner, 167 Mass. 92, 44 N.E. 1077, 1080 (1896) (Supreme Court of Massachusetts, Holmes dissenting).
The great act of faith is when a man decides that he is not God.
Letter to William James (24 March 1907).The power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits.
Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi ex rel. Knox, 277 U.S. 233 (1928).Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.
The Path of the Law (1897)The aim of the law is not to punish sins, but is to prevent certain external results.
Commonwealth v. Kennedy, 170 Mass. 18, 20 (1897) (opinion of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts).Constitutions are intended to preserve practical and substantial rights, not to maintain theories.
Davis v. Mills, 194 U.S. 451, 457 (1904).- The Common Law (1881), Lecture II, p. 44
- Speech to the Bar Association of Boston, in Speeches (1913), p. 85.
- Writing for the Court, New Jersey v. New York, et al., 283 U.S. 336, 342 (1931).
- “Natural Law”, 32 Harvard Law Review 40, 41 (1918)
- Address at the dedication of the Northwestern University Law School Building, Chicago, Illinois (20 October 1902); republished in Holmes’ Collected Legal Papers (1937), p. 272.
- Writing for the Court, Bain Peanut Co. v. Pinson, 282 U.S. 499, 501 (1931).
