Frases de Oliver Wendell Holmes

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. foi um médico, professor, palestrante e autor norte-americano. Considerado pelos seus pares como um dos melhores escritores do século XIX, é considerado um membro do Poets Fireside. Sua obra em prosa mais famosa é Breakfast-Table, que começou com o The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table . Ele é reconhecido como um importante reformador da medicina.

Nascido em Cambridge, Massachusetts, Holmes foi educado na Phillips Academy e Harvard College. Após graduar-se em Harvard em 1829, ele estudou direito antes de voltar à medicina. Começou a escrever cedo. Uma de suas obras mais famosas é "Old Ironsides", que foi publicada em 1830. Durante seu tempo de professor, ele se tornou um defensor de várias reformas. Postulou a polêmica ideia de que os médicos eram capazes de levar a febre puerperal de paciente para paciente. Quando Holmes se aposentou da Universidade de Harvard em 1882 ele continuou a escrever poesia, romances e ensaios, até sua morte em 1894. Wikipedia  

✵ 29. Agosto 1809 – 7. Outubro 1894
Oliver Wendell Holmes photo
Oliver Wendell Holmes: 158   citações 18   Curtidas

Oliver Wendell Holmes Frases famosas

Oliver Wendell Holmes frases e citações

“O homem tem a sua vontade — mas a mulher impõe a dela.”

Fonte: Revista Caras, Edição de 21 de Setembro de 2006

“Sem termos consciência de estar usando máscaras, temos uma cara específica para cada amigo.”

Fonte: livro "a sabedoria do eneagrama", Richard riso, pg 176.

“O mais importante na vida não é a situação em que nos encontramos, mas a direcção para a qual nos movemos.”

Variante: O mais importante da vida não é a situação em que estamos, mas a direção para a qual nos movemos.

“A grande coisa neste mundo não é saber onde estamos, mas para que direção estamos indo.”

Variante: A coisa mais importante no mundo não é tanto onde nós chegamos, como em qual direção estamos nos movendo.

Oliver Wendell Holmes: Frases em inglês

“A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.”

Fonte: The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859), Ch. X.
Contexto: Poets are never young, in one sense. Their delicate ear hears the far-off whispers of eternity, which coarser souls must travel towards for scores of years before their dull sense is touched by them. A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.

“One flag, one land, one heart, one hand,
One Nation evermore!”

Voyage of the good Ship Union; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“Death only grasps; to live is to pursue, —
Dream on! there 's nothing but illusion true!”

"The Old Player" (1861), in Songs in Many Keys (1862).
Contexto: Dream on! Though Heaven may woo our open eyes,
Through their closed lids we look on fairer skies;
Truth is for other worlds, and hope for this;
The cheating future lends the present's bliss;
Life is a running shade, with fettered hands,
That chases phantoms over shifting sands;
Death a still spectre on a marble seat,
With ever clutching palms and shackled feet;
The airy shapes that mock life's slender chain,
The flying joys he strives to clasp in vain,
Death only grasps; to live is to pursue, —
Dream on! there 's nothing but illusion true!

“It will take you a hundred or two more years to get decently humanized, after so many centuries of de-humanizing celibacy.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes livro Elsie Venner

Elsie Venner (1859)
Contexto: You inherit your notions from a set of priests that had no wives and no children, or none to speak of, and so let their humanity die out of them. It didn't seem much to them to condemn a few thousand millions of people to purgatory or worse for a mistake of judgment. They didn't know what it was to have a child look up in their faces and say 'Father!' It will take you a hundred or two more years to get decently humanized, after so many centuries of de-humanizing celibacy.

“We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible.”

The Poet at the Breakfast Table (1872)
Contexto: We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them, he will still feel as the famous woman did about ghosts, Je n'y crois pas, mais je les crains,—"I don't believe in them, but I am afraid of them, nevertheless".

“A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. It has come to you over a new route, by a new and express train of associations.”

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
Contexto: He must be a poor creature that does not often repeat himself. Imagine the author of the excellent piece of advice, "Know thyself," never alluding to that sentiment again during the course of a protracted existence! Why, the truths a man carries about with him are his tools; and do you think a carpenter is bound to use the same plane but once to smooth a knotty board with, or to hang up his hammer after it has driven its first nail? I shall never repeat a conversation, but an idea often. I shall use the same types when I like, but not commonly the same stereotypes. A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. It has come to you over a new route, by a new and express train of associations.

“Treat bad men exactly as if they were insane.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes livro Elsie Venner

Elsie Venner (1859)
Contexto: I do not know in what shape the practical question may present itself to you; but I will tell you my rule in life, and I think you will find it a good one. Treat bad men exactly as if they were insane. They are in-sane, out of health, morally. Reason, which is food to sound minds, is not tolerated, still less assimilated, unless administered with the greatest caution; perhaps, not at all. Avoid collision with them, so far as you honorably can; keep your temper, if you can,—for one angry man is as good as another; restrain them from violence, promptly, completely, and with the least possible injury, just as in the case of maniacs,—and when you have got rid of them, or got them tied hand and foot so that they can do no mischief, sit down and contemplate them charitably...

“Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.”

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

“You inherit your notions from a set of priests that had no wives and no children, or none to speak of, and so let their humanity die out of them.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes livro Elsie Venner

Elsie Venner (1859)
Contexto: You inherit your notions from a set of priests that had no wives and no children, or none to speak of, and so let their humanity die out of them. It didn't seem much to them to condemn a few thousand millions of people to purgatory or worse for a mistake of judgment. They didn't know what it was to have a child look up in their faces and say 'Father!' It will take you a hundred or two more years to get decently humanized, after so many centuries of de-humanizing celibacy.

“You can never be too cautious in your prognosis, in the view of the great uncertainty of the course of any disease not long watched, and the many unexpected turns it may take.”

Valedictory Address to medical graduates at Harvard University (10 March 1858), published in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal Vol. LVIII, No. 8 (25 March 1858), p. 158; this has also been paraphrased "Beware how you take away hope from another human being".
Contexto: You can never be too cautious in your prognosis, in the view of the great uncertainty of the course of any disease not long watched, and the many unexpected turns it may take.
I think I am not the first to utter the following caution : —
Beware how you take away hope from any human being. Nothing is clearer than that the merciful Creator intends to blind most people as they pass down into the dark valley. Without very good reasons, temporal or spiritual, we should not interfere with his kind arrangements. It is the height of cruelty and the extreme of impertinence to tell your patient he must die, except you are sure that he wishes to know it, or that there is some particular cause for his knowing it. I should be especially unwilling to tell a child that it could not recover; if the theologians think it necessary, let them take the responsibility. God leads it by the hand to the edge of the precipice in happy unconsciousness, and I would not open its eyes to what he wisely conceals.

“I should be especially unwilling to tell a child that it could not recover; if the theologians think it necessary, let them take the responsibility. God leads it by the hand to the edge of the precipice in happy unconsciousness, and I would not open its eyes to what he wisely conceals.”

Valedictory Address to medical graduates at Harvard University (10 March 1858), published in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal Vol. LVIII, No. 8 (25 March 1858), p. 158; this has also been paraphrased "Beware how you take away hope from another human being".
Contexto: You can never be too cautious in your prognosis, in the view of the great uncertainty of the course of any disease not long watched, and the many unexpected turns it may take.
I think I am not the first to utter the following caution : —
Beware how you take away hope from any human being. Nothing is clearer than that the merciful Creator intends to blind most people as they pass down into the dark valley. Without very good reasons, temporal or spiritual, we should not interfere with his kind arrangements. It is the height of cruelty and the extreme of impertinence to tell your patient he must die, except you are sure that he wishes to know it, or that there is some particular cause for his knowing it. I should be especially unwilling to tell a child that it could not recover; if the theologians think it necessary, let them take the responsibility. God leads it by the hand to the edge of the precipice in happy unconsciousness, and I would not open its eyes to what he wisely conceals.

“Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere,
One thing is certain: Love will triumph here!”

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
Contexto: Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere,
One thing is certain: Love will triumph here!
Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule,—
The world's great masters, when you 're out of school,—
Learn the brief moral of our evening's play
Man has his will,—but woman has her way!

“Man has his will,—but woman has her way!”

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
Contexto: Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere,
One thing is certain: Love will triumph here!
Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule,—
The world's great masters, when you 're out of school,—
Learn the brief moral of our evening's play
Man has his will,—but woman has her way!

“The god looked out upon the troubled deep
Waked into tumult from its placid sleep”

"Translation From The Æneid, Book I" written while at Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts (c. 1824).
Contexto: The god looked out upon the troubled deep
Waked into tumult from its placid sleep;
The flame of anger kindles in his eye
As the wild waves ascend the lowering sky;
He lifts his head above their awful height
And to the distant fleet directs his sight.

“If a man has a genuine, sincere, hearty wish to get rid of his liberty, if he is really bent upon becoming a slave, nothing can stop him.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes livro Elsie Venner

Elsie Venner (1859)
Contexto: If a man has a genuine, sincere, hearty wish to get rid of his liberty, if he is really bent upon becoming a slave, nothing can stop him. And the temptation is to some natures a very great one. Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man. It involves that necessity for perpetual choice which is the kind of labor men have always dreaded. In common life we shirk it by forming habits, which take the place of self-determination. In politics party-organization saves us the pains of much thinking before deciding how to cast our vote.

“Call him not old whose visionary brain
Holds o’er the post its undivided reign”

"The Old Player" (1861), in Songs in Many Keys (1862).
Contexto: Call him not old whose visionary brain
Holds o’er the post its undivided reign,
For him in vain the envious seasons roll,
Who bears eternal summer in this soul.

“Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way, — and the fools know it.”

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
Contexto: Do you think I don't understand what my friend, the Professor, long ago called the hydrostatic paradox of controversy?
Don't know what it means? - Well, I will tell you. You know, that, if you had a bent tube, one arm of which was of the size of a pipe-stem, and the other big enough to hold the ocean, water would stand at the same height in one as in the other. Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way, — and the fools know it.

“Be polite and generous, but don't undervalue yourself.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes livro Elsie Venner

Elsie Venner (1859)
Contexto: Be polite and generous, but don't undervalue yourself. You will be useful, at any rate; you may just as well be happy, while you are about it.

“Lord of all being, thronèd afar,
Thy glory flames from sun and star;
Center and soul of every sphere,
Yet to each loving heart how near!”

"Lord Of All Being" (1848).
Contexto: Lord of all being, thronèd afar,
Thy glory flames from sun and star;
Center and soul of every sphere,
Yet to each loving heart how near!
Sun of our life, Thy quickening ray,
Sheds on our path the glow of day;
Star of our hope, Thy softened light
Cheers the long watches of the night.

“Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.”

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
Contexto: Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad.

“Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.”

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
Contexto: Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable. Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else, - very rarely to those who say to themselves, "Go to, now, let us be a celebrated individual!"

“He must be a poor creature that does not often repeat himself.”

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
Contexto: He must be a poor creature that does not often repeat himself. Imagine the author of the excellent piece of advice, "Know thyself," never alluding to that sentiment again during the course of a protracted existence! Why, the truths a man carries about with him are his tools; and do you think a carpenter is bound to use the same plane but once to smooth a knotty board with, or to hang up his hammer after it has driven its first nail? I shall never repeat a conversation, but an idea often. I shall use the same types when I like, but not commonly the same stereotypes. A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. It has come to you over a new route, by a new and express train of associations.

“Beware how you take away hope from any human being.”

Valedictory Address to medical graduates at Harvard University (10 March 1858), published in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal Vol. LVIII, No. 8 (25 March 1858), p. 158; this has also been paraphrased "Beware how you take away hope from another human being".
Misattributed
Contexto: You can never be too cautious in your prognosis, in the view of the great uncertainty of the course of any disease not long watched, and the many unexpected turns it may take.
I think I am not the first to utter the following caution : —
Beware how you take away hope from any human being. Nothing is clearer than that the merciful Creator intends to blind most people as they pass down into the dark valley. Without very good reasons, temporal or spiritual, we should not interfere with his kind arrangements. It is the height of cruelty and the extreme of impertinence to tell your patient he must die, except you are sure that he wishes to know it, or that there is some particular cause for his knowing it. I should be especially unwilling to tell a child that it could not recover; if the theologians think it necessary, let them take the responsibility. God leads it by the hand to the edge of the precipice in happy unconsciousness, and I would not open its eyes to what he wisely conceals.

“The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men, — from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.”

Fonte: The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859), Ch. V.
Contexto: The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men, — from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms. It is in their hearts that the "sentimental" religion some people are so fond of sneering at has its source. The sentiment of love, the sentiment of maternity, the sentiment of the paramount obligation of the parent to the child as having called it into existence, enhanced just in proportion to the power and knowledge of the one and the weakness and ignorance of the other, — these are the "sentiments" that have kept our soulless systems from driving men off to die in holes like those that riddle the sides of the hill opposite the Monastery of St. Saba, where the miserable victims of a falsely-interpreted religion starved and withered in their delusion.