The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will contract.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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About Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Portrait of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (March 8, 1841 – March 6, 1935) was an American jurist and legal scholar who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932. He is one of the most widely cited U.S. Supreme Court justices and most...

More quotations from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

I think it not improbable that man, like the grub that prepares a chamber for the winged thing it has never seen but is to be — that man may have cosmic destinies that he does not understand. And so, beyond the vision of battling races and an impoverished earth, I catch a dreaming glimpse of peace.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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law confusion lawyers smoke haze

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A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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The character of a man is known from his conversations.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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character

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The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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history development law mathematics

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