“Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.”
More from Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. on Wisdom
“Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up.”
“The books we read should be chosen with great care, that they may be, as an Egyptian king wrote over his library,'The medicines of the soul.”
“I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.”
“The young man knows the rules but the old man knows the exceptions.”
“A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.”
“Except in cases of necessity which are rare leave your friend to learn unpleasant things from his enemies they are ready enough to tell him.”
Others on Wisdom
Sun Tzu
30 quotes“Do not swallow bait offered by the enemy. Do not interfere with an army that is returning home.”
Dalai Lama
22 quotes“Compassion is the radicalism of our time.”
Cervantes
20 quotes“A closed mouth catches no flies.”
Aesop
19 quotes“Little by little does the trick.”
Confucius
19 quotes“The gem cannot be polished without friction nor man perfected without trials.”
Ben Franklin
18 quotes“Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.”
Napoleon
16 quotes“Ability is of little account without opportunity.”
Cicero
15 quotes“Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.”
George Washington
14 quotes“Let your Discourse with Men of Business be Short and Comprehensive.”
Rudyard Kipling
14 quotes“I keep six honest serving men. (They taught me all I know) Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and...”
Khalil Gibran
14 quotes“Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.”
George R.R. Martin
14 quotes“This was how an enemy should be dealt with: with a dagger, not a declaration.”