Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
To be 70 years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be 40 years old.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant things from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell them.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it round. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't embrace trouble; that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
In youth we learn; in age we understand.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes