Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea,
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimensions.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Related topics: Life Human-Nature Psychology Motivational

A mind that is stretched by a new experience
an never go back to its old dimensions.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Greatness is not in where we stand,
but in what direction we are moving.
We must sail sometimes with the wind
and sometimes against it -
but sail we must,
and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The best of a book is not the thought which it contains,
but the thought which it suggests;
just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones
but in the echoes of our hearts.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When in doubt, do it.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

It is the province of knowledge to speak,
and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Apology is only egotism wrong side out.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

If you don't know what you want, you will probably never get it.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold;
But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Some people are so heavenly minded
that they are no earthly good.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

A mind, once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimensions.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

To be seventy years young is sometimes
far more cheerful and hopeful
than to be forty years old.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

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, Jr.

Old age is fifteen years older than I am.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
- George Eliot

Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde

Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln

If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl

Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Two things a man should never be angry at:
what he can help,
and what he cannot help.
- Thomas Fuller

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance;
the wise grows it under his feet.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer

The wise man looks back into the past,
and does not grieve over what is far off,
nor rejoice over what is near;
for he knows that time is without end.
- Lao Tzu

No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing,
and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect.
- George Bernard Shaw

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.
- Epicurus

If a man can... make a better mousetrap,
the world will make a beaten path to his door.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal
of plain living and high thinking
the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants.
Man's happiness really lies in contentment.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The gem cannot be polished without friction,
nor man perfected without trials.
- Confucius

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
- Abraham Lincoln

A man can do only what he can do.
But if he does that each day he can sleep at night
and do it again the next day.
- Albert Schweitzer

If thou wilt make a man happy,
add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.
- Epicurus

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live
that his happiness shall depend
as little as possible on external things.
- Epictetus

We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me,
that man with all his noble qualities...
still bears in his bodily frame
the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
- Charles Darwin

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone
who can do him absolutely no good.
- Samuel Johnson

A great secret of success is to go through life
as a man who never gets used up.
- Albert Schweitzer

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
- Oscar Wilde

Behind an able man there are always other able men.
- Chinese proverb

No man is free who is not master of himself.
- Epictetus

It is what a man thinks of himself
that really determines his fate.
- Henry David Thoreau

If a man loses pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
however measured or far away.
- Henry David Thoreau

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.
You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
- Naguib Mahfouz

Circumstances make man, not man circumstances.
- Mark Twain

The Universe is one great kindergarten for man.
Everything that exists has brought
with it its own peculiar lesson.
- Orison Swett Marden

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready
for his opportunity when it comes.
- Benjamin Disraeli

Many a man fails as an original thinker
simply because his memory is too good.
- Nietzsche

A man who is a master of patience is master of everything else.
- George Savile

When you are offended at any man's fault,
turn to yourself and study your own failings.
Then you will forget your anger.
- Epictetus

Science gives man knowledge, which is power;
religion gives man wisdom, which is control.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Before you criticize a man,
walk a mile in his shoes.
- Anonymous

It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe,
that lures him to evil ways.
- The Buddha

A man is truly ethical only when he obeys
the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist,
and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.
- Albert Schweitzer

If there is anything that a man can do well,
I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
- Abraham Lincoln

Man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be,
at the hands of his brother, never by killing him.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Is the babe young? When I behold it,
it seems more venerable than the oldest man.
- Henry David Thoreau

A man is but the product of his thoughts -
what he thinks, he becomes.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

One man with courage makes a majority.
- old saying probably repeated by Andrew Jackson
(falsely attributed to Jefferson)

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A wise man hears one word and understands two.
- Yiddish Proverb

A man can succeed at almost anything
for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.
- Charles M. Schwab

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands
in moments of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Non-violence means avoiding not only external physical violence
but also internal violence of spirit.
You not only refuse to shoot a man,
but you refuse to hate him.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

A man can fail many times,
but he isn't a failure until
he begins to blame somebody else.
- John Burroughs

Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head,
and knows not that it brings abundance
to drive away the hunger.
- Saint Basil

Non-violence requires a double faith,
faith in God and also faith in man.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The more a man can forget, the greater the number
of metamorphoses which his life can undergo,
the more he can remember, the more divine his life becomes.
- Soren Kierkegaard

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy.
What right have we then to depreciate imagination.
- Carl Jung

Man plans, God laughs
- Yiddish Proverb

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie