Talk:Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

I have heard...
I have heard that the following quote originated with Oliver Wendell Homles. I was wondering if this was true and if so from what publication? If this is his quote, I think it would be a great addition to his page.

Thanks!

"I wouldn't give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity; I would give my right arm for the simplicity on the far side of complexity."


 * Somebody suggested it might be his son that said this, but there was no verification for that given, so I reinserted it.Wolfkeeper 19:51, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. did say it, or something like it, in a letter to Sir Frederick Pollock in the 1930s.78.133.49.191 15:43, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

"The only simplicity for which I would give a straw is that which is on the other side of the complex — not that which never has divined it." - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. "Holmes-Pollock Letters : The Correspondence of Mr. Justice Holmes and Sir Frederick Pollock, 1874-1932" (2nd ed., 1961), p. 109.

Clean-up needed
Moved here for working on. Gordonofcartoon 02:29, 4 December 2009 (UTC)


 * "...the white man hates him [the Indian], and hunts him down like the wild beasts of the forest, and so the red-crayon sketch is rubbed out, and the canvas is ready for a picture of manhood a little more like God's own image." (Now sourced)
 * "Gentlemen, damn the sphenoid bone!" (Uncertain. James Rushmore Wood was identified as long ago as 1912 as saying this. )

Unsourced

 * What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.