Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

A few can touch the magic string, and noisy fame is proud to win them: Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them! 

A goose flies by a chart which the Royal Geographical Society could not mend. 

A great calamity is as old as the trilobites an hour after it has happened. 

A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve. 

A new untruth is better than an old truth. 

A person is always startled when he hears himself called old for the first time. 

A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide. 

A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. 

A woman never forgets her sex. She would rather talk with a man than an angel, any day. 

Apology is only egotism wrong side out.

Between two groups of people who want to make inconsistent kinds of worlds, I see no remedy but force.

Beware how you take away hope from another human being.

But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.

Controversy equalizes fools and wise men - and the fools know it.

Do not be bullied out of your common sense by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant. 

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.

Don't you stay at home of evenings? Don't you love a cushioned seat in a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your feet?

Even for practical purposes theory generally turns out the most important thing in the end.