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Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (29 August 1809 – 8 October 1894) was an American physician, writer, poet, and the father of US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Quotes

 * For there we loved, and where we love is home, Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts, Though o'er us shine the jasper-lighted dome:-- The chain may lengthen, but it never parts!
 * ''Homesick In Heamoney

 * 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.
 * "Translation From The Æneid, Book I" written while at Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts (c. 1824).

 * Faith loves to lean on time's destroying arm, And age, like distance, lends a double charm.
 * Urania: A Rhymed Lesson (1846), p. 11.

 * 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.
 * "Lord Of All Being" (1848).

 * Grant us Thy truth to make us free, And kindling hearts that burn for Thee, Till all Thy living altars claim One holy light, one heavenly flame.
 * "Lord Of All Being" (1848).

 * Then the white man hates him [the Native American], 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.
 * "The Pilgrims of Plymouth" (Oration, December 22, 1855), in Cephas Brainerd and Eveline Warner Brainerd (eds), The New England Society Orations: Volume II. New York: The Century Co., 1901, p. 298.

 * 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.
 * 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".

 * 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.
 * "The Old Player" (1861), in Songs in Many Keys (1862).

 * 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!
 * "The Old Player" (1861), in Songs in Many Keys (1862).

 * Storms, thunders, waves! Howl, crash, and bellow till ye get your fill; Ye sometimes rest; men never can be still But in their graves.
 * "Daily Trials" in Companion Poets (1871).

 * Love is the master-key that opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easily of all, the gate of fear. How terrible is the one fact of beauty!
 * A Mortal Antipathy (1885) This statement is often misquoted as "Love is the master-key that opens the gates of happiness".

 * I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be better for mankind-and all the worse for the fishes.
 * Part of a statement at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Society (30 May 1860), generally quoted in a simplified form omitting Holmes's exceptions including opium and anaesthetics.
 * Throw out opium, which the Creator himself seems to prescribe, for we often see the scarlet poppy growing in the cornfields, as if it were foreseen that wherever there is hunger to be fed there must also be a pain to be soothed; throw out a few specifics which our art did not discover, and it is hardly needed to apply; throw out wine, which is a food, and the vapors which produce the miracle of anaesthesia, and I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica [medical drugs], as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind,—and all the worse for the fishes.
 * As quoted in a review of Currents and Counter-currents in Medical Science (1860) in The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, Vol. 40 (1860), p. 467
 * Paraphrased variant: If all the medicine in the world were thrown into the sea, it would be bad for the fish and good for humanity.

 * I have always considered my face a convenience rather than an ornament.
 * Letter to James Russell Lowell (18 March 1882)

 * Speak not too well of one who scarce will know Himself transfigured in its roseate glow; Say kindly of him what is, chiefly, true, Remembering always he belongs to you; Deal with him as a truant, if you will, But claim him, keep him, call him brother still!
 * "Poem", read at a dinner given for the author by the medical profession of the City of New York (April 12, 1883); reported in The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, ed. Eleanor M. Tilton (1895, rev. 1975), p. 71.

 * On Thee we fling our burdening woe, O love Divine, forever dear: Content to suffer, while we know, Living and dying, Thou art near!
 * Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 596.

 * I would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the purpose. I know there are professors in this country who 'ligate' arteries. Other surgeons only tie them, and it stops the bleeding just as well.
 * 'Scholastic and Bedside Teaching', Introductory Lecture to the Medical Class of Harvard University (6 Nov 1867). In Medical Essays 1842-1882 (1891), 302.

 * God reigneth. All is well.
 * Hymn at the Funeral Services of Charles Sumner; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare Browning, Pippa Passes: "God's in his heaven— All's right with the world".

 * One unquestioned text we read, All doubt beyond, all fear above; Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed Can burn or blot it—God is love.
 * What we all think; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare Browning, Paracelsus: "God! Thou art love! I build my faith on that".

 * If we are only as the potter's clay Made to be fashioned as the artist wills, And broken into shards if we offend The eye of Him who made us, it is well.
 * Rights; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.
 * On the Seventieth Birthday of Julia Ward Howe (May 27, 1899); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has prest In their bloom; And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb.
 * The last Leaf; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * I know it is a sin For me to sit and grin At him here; But the old three-cornered hat, And the breeches, and all that, Are so queer!
 * The last Leaf; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Thou say’st an undisputed thing In such a solemn way.
 * To an Insect; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * And silence, like a poultice, comes To heal the blows of sound.
 * To an Insect; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * You think they are crusaders sent From some infernal clime, To pluck the eyes of sentiment And dock the tail of Rhyme, To crack the voice of Melody And break the legs of Time.
 * The Music Grinders; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * And since, I never dare to write As funny as I can.
 * The Height of the Ridiculous; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * When the last reader reads no more.
 * The last Reader; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * The freeman casting with unpurchased hand The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.
 * Poetry, a Metrical Essay; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * And when you stick on conversation’s burrs, Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.
 * A rhymed Lesson. Urania; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Wake in our breast the living fires, The holy faith that warmed our sires; Thy hand hath made our nation free; To die for her is serving Thee.
 * Army Hymn; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Thine eye was on the censer, And not the hand that bore it.
 * Lines by a Clerk; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Where go the poet's lines? Answer, ye evening tapers! Ye auburn locks, ye golden curls, Speak from your folded papers!
 * The Poet's Lot; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * 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!
 * The Voiceless; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * O hearts that break and give no sign Save whitening lip and fading tresses!
 * The Voiceless; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!
 * The chambered Nautilus; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * 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).

 * His home! the Western giant smiles, And twirls the spotty globe to find it; This little speck, the British Isles? ’T is but a freckle,—never mind it.
 * A good Time going; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * But Memory blushes at the sneer, And Honor turns with frown defiant, And Freedom, leaning on her spear, Laughs louder than the laughing giant.
 * A good Time going; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * You hear that boy laughing?—you think he’s all fun; But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all.
 * The Boys; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Good to the heels the well-worn slipper feels When the tired player shuffles off the buskin; A page of Hood may do a fellow good After a scolding from Carlyle or Ruskin.
 * How not to settle it; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Lean, hungry, savage anti-everythings.
 * A modest Request; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, That was built in such a logical way It ran a hundred years to a day?
 * The Deacon's Masterpiece; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * A general flavor of mild decay.
 * The Deacon's Masterpiece; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * It went to pieces all at once— All at once and nothing first, Just as bubbles do when they burst.
 * The Deacon's Masterpiece; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * The brightest blades grow dim with rust, The fairest meadow white with snow.
 * Chanson without Music; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * When lawyers take what they would give And doctors give what they would take.
 * Latterday Warnings; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold; But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.
 * No Time like the old Time; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Old Ironsides (1830)

 * Written 16 September 1830 in response to reports that the U.S.S. Constitution was to be scrapped, it is generally credited with arousing public sentiment sufficient to save the ship, which remains a commissioned ship of the U.S. Navy to this day, the oldest floating commissioned naval vessel in the world. · Full text online at Wikisource

 * Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high;
 * And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky;
 * Beneath it rung the battle shout, and burst the cannon's roar;
 * The meteor of the ocean air shall sweep the clouds no more.

 * Her deck once red with heroes' blood where knelt the vanquished foe;
 * When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, and waves were white below;
 * No more shall feel the victor's tread,or know the conquered knee;
 * The harpies of the shore shall pluck the eagle of the sea!

 * Oh, better that her shattered bulk should sink beneath the wave;
 * Her thunders shook the mighty deep, and there should be her grave;
 * Nail to the mast her holy flag, set every threadbare sail
 * And give her to the god of storms, the lightning and the gale!

Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions (1842)

 * Full text online at Wikisource

 * Those kind friends who suggest to a person suffering from a tedious complaint, that he "Had better try Homoeopathy," are apt to enforce their suggestion by adding, that "at any rate it can do no harm." This may or may not be true as regards the individual. But it always does very great harm to the community to encourage ignorance, error, or deception in a profession which deals with the life and health of our fellow-creatures.

 * So long as the body is affected through the mind, no audacious device, even of the most manifestly dishonest character, can fail of producing occasional good to those who yield it an implicit or even a partial faith. The argument founded on this occasional good would be as applicable in justifying the counterfeiter and giving circulation to his base coin, on the ground that a spurious dollar had often relieved a poor man's necessities.

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

 * Full text online

 * Chapter I
 * All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called “facts.” They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.

 * 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.

 * When one has had all his conceit taken out of him, when he has lost all his illusions, his feathers will soon soak through, and he will fly no more.

 * I say that conceit is just as natural a thing to human minds as a centre is to a circle. But little-minded people's thoughts move in such small circles that five minutes' conversation gives you an arc long enough to determine their whole curve. An arc in the movement of a large intellect does not sensibly differ from a straight line. Even if it have the third vowel ['I', the first-person pronoun] as its centre, it does not soon betray it. The highest thought, that is, is the most seemingly impersonal; it does not obviously imply any individual centre.

 * Even in common people, conceit has the virtue of making them cheerful; the man who thinks his wife, his baby, his house, his horse, his dog, and himself severally unequalled, is almost sure to be a good-humored person, though liable to be tedious at times.

 * What are the great faults of conversation? Want of ideas, want of words, want of manners, are the principal ones, I suppose you think. I don't doubt it, but I will tell you what I have found spoil more good talks than anything else;—long arguments on special points between people who differ on the fundamental principles upon which these points depend. No men can have satisfactory relations with each other until they have agreed on certain ultimata [finalities] of belief not to be disturbed in ordinary conversation, and unless they have sense enough to trace the secondary questions depending upon these ultimate beliefs to their source. In short, just as a written constitution is essential to the best social order, so a code of finalities is a necessary condition of profitable talk between two persons.

 * 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.

 * You can hire logic, in the shape of a lawyer, to prove anything that you want to prove.

 * Some of the sharpest men in argument are notoriously unsound in judgment.

 * Everybody likes and respects self-made men. It is a great deal better to be made in that way than not to be made at all.

 * Chapter II
 * 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.

 * 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!

 * Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.

 * Chapter III
 * Scientific knowledge, even in the most modest persons, has mingled with it a something which partakes of insolence. Absolute, peremptory facts are bullies, and those who keep company with them are apt to get a bullying habit of mind.

 * Mark this which I am going to say once for all: If I had not force enough to project a principle full in the face of the half dozen most obvious facts which seem to contradict it, I would think only in single file from this day forward.
 * Holmes' critique of "single file" thinking foreshadows Fyodor Dostoevsky's attack, in an essay of October 1876, on what he called "the straight-line approach". See Dostoevsky, A Writer's Diary, Volume 1: 1873–1876 (Northwestern University Press, 1997), pp. 641–57, 721–29.

 * How many people live on the reputation of the reputation they might have made!

 * Chapter IV
 * I try his head occasionally as housewives try eggs,— give it an intellectual shake and hold it up to the light, so to speak, to see if it has life in it, actual or potential, or only contains lifeless albumen.

 * Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the other water-power; that is all.

 * I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it,—but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
 * Josephus Daniels, ambassador to Mexico, sent this quotation to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 1, 1936, in a note of New Year greetings, with this comment: "Here is an expression from Holmes which, if it has missed you, is so good you may find a use for it in one of your 'fireside' talks". Reported in Carroll Kilpatrick, ed., Roosevelt and Daniels (1952), p. 159.

 * Did I not say to you a little while ago that the universe swam in an ocean of similitudes and analogies?
 * Earlier in the chapter Holmes says that all the comparisons and analogies ever made "would be but a cupful from the infinite ocean of similitudes and analogies that rolls through the universe".

 * Chapter V
 * Don't ever think the poetry is dead in an old man because his forehead is wrinkled, or that his manhood has left him when his hand trembles! If they ever were there, they are there still!

 * 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.

 * Chapter VI
 * Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.

 * There is that glorious Epicurean paradox uttered by my friend the Historian, in one of his flashing moments: "Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries." To this must certainly be added that other saying of one of the wittiest of men: "Good Americans when they die go to Paris."
 * Holmes attributed the remark "Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris" to "one of the wittiest of men". Later writers have attributed the saying to friend and fellow Saturday Club member Thomas Gold Appleton. In 1859, Ralph Waldo Emerson, also a member of that club, recorded in one of his journals, "T. Appleton says, that he thinks all Bostonians, when they die, if they are good, go to Paris." Emerson in His Journals, ed. Joel Porte (1982), p. 486. Neither sentence has been found in the published writings of Appleton, but the remark may have been made in the presence of Holmes and Emerson. Oscar Wilde used the Holmes version in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), p. 75 (Complete Works, vol. 4, 1923), and A Woman of No Importance (1893), p. 180 (Complete Works, vol. 7, 1923).

 * Boston State-house is the hub of the solar system. You couldn't pry that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a crow-bar.

 * The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the center of each and every town or city.

 * I won't say, the more intellect, the less capacity for loving; for that would do wrong to the understanding and reason;—but, on the other hand, that the brain often runs away with the heart's best blood, which gives the world a few pages of wisdom or sentiment or poetry, instead of making one other heart happy, I have no question.

 * But to radiate the heat of the affections into a clod, which absorbs all that is poured into it, but never warms beneath the sunshine of smiles or the pressure of hand or lip,—this is the great martyrdom of sensitive beings,—most of all in that perpetual auto da fé where young womanhood is the sacrifice.

 * The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great scholars great men.

 * Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used, till they are seasoned.

 * The men of facts wait their turn in grim silence, with that slight tension about the nostrils which the consciousness of carrying a "settler" in the form of a fact or a revolver gives the individual thus armed.

 * Chapter VII
 * The great delusion of mankind is in supposing that to be individual and exceptional which is universal and according to law.

 * Now habit is a labor-saving invention which enables a man to get along with less fuel,—that is all; for fuel is force.

 * Chapter VIII
 * The hat is the ultimum moriens of "respectability".
 * "Ultimum moriens," the Autocrat explains, "is old Italian [i.e. Latin], and signifies last thing to die."

 * The creative action is not voluntary at all, but automatic; we can only put the mind into the proper attitude, and wait for the wind, that blows where it listeth, to breathe over it. Thus the true state of creative genius is allied to reverie, or dreaming.

 * Chapter IX
 * You know well enough what I mean by youth and age;—something in the soul, which has no more to do with the color of the hair than the vein of gold in a rock has to do with the grass a thousand feet above it.

 * It is by little things that we know ourselves; a soul would very probably mistake itself for another, when once disembodied, were it not for individual experiences which differ from those of others only in details seemingly trifling.

 * One could never remember himself in eternity by the mere fact of having loved or hated any more than by that of having thirsted; love and hate have no more individuality in them than single waves in the ocean;—but the accidents or trivial marks which distinguished those whom we loved or hated make their memory our own forever, and with it that of our own personality also.

 * Each woman virtually summons every man to show cause why he doth not love her.

 * Chapter X
 * Why should we be more shy of repeating ourselves than the spring be tired of blossoms or the night of stars?

 * The soul of a man has a series of concentric envelopes round it, like the core of an onion, or the innermost of a nest of boxes. First he has his natural garment of flesh and blood. Then, his artificial integuments, with their true skin of solid stuffs, their cuticle of lighter tissues, and their variously tinted pigments. Thirdly, his domicile, be it a single chamber or a stately mansion. And then, the whole visible world, in which Time buttons him up as in a loose outside wrapper.

 * Chapter XI
 * Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions. After looking at the Alps, I felt that my mind had been stretched beyond the limits of its elasticity, and fitted so loosely on my old ideas of space that I had to spread these to fit it.

 * Little I ask, my wants are few; I only wish a hut of stone, (A very plain brown stone will do,) That I may call my own;— And close at hand is such a one, In yonder street that fronts the sun.
 * "Contentment".

 * Chapter XII
 * Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.

 * You may set it down as a truth which admits of few exceptions, that those who ask your opinion really want your praise, and will be contented with nothing less.

 * 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!"

 * How many have withered and wasted under as slow a torment in the walls of that larger Inquisition which we call Civilization!

 * Talk about it as much as you like,—one's breeding shows itself nowhere more than in his religion.

Elsie Venner (1859)

 * 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.

 * Leverage is everything,—was what I used to say;—don't begin to pry till you have got the long arm on your side.

 * 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...

 * 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.

 * We forget that weakness is not in itself a sin. We forget that even cowardice may call for our most lenient judgment, if it spring from innate infirmity.

 * All of us love companionship and sympathy; some of us may love them too much. All of us are more or less imaginative in our theology.

 * There isn't a text in the Bible better worth keeping always in mind than that one, 'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' .

 * What's the use in our caring about hard words after this,—'atheists,' heretics, infidels, and the like? They're, after all, only the cinders picked up out of those heaps of ashes round the stumps of the old stakes where they used to burn men, women, and children for not thinking just like other folks.

 * 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 very shy of asking questions of those who know enough to destroy with one word the hopes we live on.

 * What a miserable thing it is to be poor.

 * The Widow Rowens was now in the full bloom of ornamental sorrow.

The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)

 * First published in The Atlantic Monthly (May 1859)

 * Nobody talks much that doesn't say unwise things, — things he did not mean to say; as no person plays much without striking a false note sometimes.
 * Ch. I.

 * What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left!
 * Ch. I.

 * Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day, like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.
 * Ch. V.

 * Time, time only, can gradually wean us from our Epeolatry, or word-worship, by spiritualizing our ideas of the thing signified.
 * Ch. V.

 * 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.
 * Ch. V.

 * You don't know, perhaps, but I will tell you; the brain is the palest of all the internal organs, and the heart the reddest. Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of the place it came from, and whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and color of its birthplace.
 * Ch. VI.

 * Why can't somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks?
 * Ch. VI.

 * So from the heights of Will Life's parting stream descends, And, as a moment turns its slender rill, Each widening torrent bends, From the same cradle's side, From the same mother's knee, —One to long darkness and the frozen tide, One to the Peaceful Sea!
 * "The Two Streams", Ch. VI.

 * 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.
 * Ch. X.

 * The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a deal longer.
 * Ch. XI.

 * Most persons have died before they expire, — died to all earthly longings, so that the last breath is only, as it were, the locking of the door of the already deserted mansion.
 * Ch. XI.

Mechanism in thought and morals (1871)

 * I once inhaled a pretty full dose of ether, with the determination to put on record, at the earliest moment of regaining consciousness, the thought I should find uppermost in my mind. The mighty music of the triumphal march into nothingness reverberated through my brain, and filled me with a sense of infinite possibilities, which made me an archangel for the moment. The veil of eternity was lifted. The one great truth which underlies all human experience, and is the key to all the mysteries that philosophy has sought in vain to solve, flashed upon me in a sudden revelation. Henceforth all was clear: a few words had lifted my intelligence to the level of the knowledge of the cherubim. As my natural condition returned, I remembered my resolution; and, staggering to my desk, I wrote, in ill-shaped straggling letters, the all-embracing truth still glimmering in my consciousness. The words were these (children may smile; the wise will ponder): “A strong smell of turpentine prevails throughout.”
 * Mechanism in thought and morals : an address delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University, June 29, 1870

The Poet at the Breakfast Table (1872)

 * I talk half the time to find out my own thoughts, as a school-boy turns his pockets inside out to see what is in them. One brings to light all sorts of personal property he had forgotten in his inventory.
 * Ch. 1, p. 1 The Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. 3 (1892)

One-story intellects, two-story intellects, three-story intellects, with skylights. All fact-collectors, who have no aim beyond their facts, are one-story men. Two-story men compare, reason, generalize, using the labors of the fact-collectors as well as their own. Three-story men idealize, imagine, predict; their best illumination comes from above, through the skylight. There are minds with large ground floors, that can store an infinite amount of knowledge; some librarians, for instance, who know enough of books to help other people, without being able to make much other use of their knowledge, have intellects of this class. Your great working lawyer has two spacious stories; his mind is clear, because his mental floors are large, and he has room to arrange his thoughts so that he can get at them,—facts below, principles above, and all in ordered series; poets are often narrow below, incapable of clear statement, and with small power of consecutive reasoning, but full of light, if sometimes rather bare of furniture in the attics.
 * I don't want to have the territory of a man's mind fenced in. I don't want to shut out the mystery of the stars and the awful hollow that holds them. We have done with those hypaethral temples, that were open above to the heavens, but we can have attics and skylights to them. Minds with skylights...

 * "I suppose you are an entomologist?" "Not quite so ambitious as that, sir. I should like to put my eyes on the individual entitled to that name. No man can be truly called an entomologist, sir; the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp".

 * Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground-floor.

 * It is the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
 * Ch. 10 and The Atlantic Monthly October 1872

 * Men are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; they always did, they always will; and if you don't make it of wood, you must make it of words…

 * Knowledge—it excites prejudices to call it science—is advancing as irresistibly, as majestically, as remorselessly as the ocean moves in upon the shore.

 * 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".

Quotes about

 * Right now I'm reading Mark Twain's Autobiography, which I like very much. There is a part where he talks about his love for Oliver Wendell Holmes's writing. Twain tells of how he was accused of plagiarism because once he took a quotation from Holmes and used it as his own. He says that plagiarism does not exist in literature, and I agree. Literature is made of many pieces, of a reinterpretation of similar themes, of a recycling of materials. Only the mask exists, and the writer wears it to interpret the manifold possibilities of humanity that exist around him. He learns to be a writer when he can take someone else's mask and make it a part of himself and talk from that mask.
 * Rosario Ferré interview in Backtalk: Women Writers Speak Out by Donna Marie Perry (1993)

title: Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.


text:
Grosse Pointe Blank

Grosse Pointe Blank is a 1997 film about a troubled assassin who returns to his hometown for a contract, his ten-year high school reunion, and the girl he left behind.
 * Directed by George Armitage. Written by Tom Jankiewicz, D.V. DeVincentis, Steve Pink, and John Cusack.

Even A Hit Man Deserves A Second Shot! (taglines)

Martin Blank

 * If I show up at your door, chances are you did something to bring me there.
 * I guess you could say I went west. You know, the way of Horatio Alger, Davy Crockett, the Donner Party...
 * When I left, I joined the army, and when I took the service exam my psych profile fit a certain... moral flexibility would be the only way to describe it... and I was loaned out to a CIA-sponsored program, and we sort of found each other. That's how it works.
 * I know what I do isn't... moral, per se...
 * You can never go home again, Oatman... but I guess you can shop there.
 * I just honestly don't know what I have in common with those people anymore... or with anyone, really. I mean, they'll all have husbands and wives and children and houses and dogs, and, you know, they'll have made themselves a part of something, and they can talk about what they do. And what am I going to say? "I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How've you been?"
 * [to himself, rehearsing] Hi! I'm Martin Blank, do you remember me? I'm not married, I don't have any kids, and I'd blow your head off if someone paid me enough.
 * A thousand innocent people get killed every day, but a millionaire's pet gets detonated and you're marked for life.

Debi Newberry

 * Everybody's coming back to take stock of their lives. You know what I say? Leave your livestock alone.
 * If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's... well... broken.
 * People say forgive and forget. Yeah, I don't know. I say forget about forgiving and just accept. And get the hell out of town.
 * Where are all the good men dead? In the heart or in the head?
 * [Martin gives Debi flowers] I'll go put these in some rubbing alcohol.

Mr. Grocer

 * See, kid, this is what I'm talking about. We could be working together again, for God's sake. You know? Making big money, killing important people!
 * Hey, hey, bing bing bing bing bang! POPCORN!
 * Easy there, chief. I don't see hollow-point wound care on the menu.
 * Uh-oh! Smells like a wedding! You're breaking my heart down here, Blank! I can't aim through the tears!
 * Like I'm gonna put a bullet hole in your FUCKIN' forehead and I'm gonna FUCK the brain hole!

Others

 * Marcella: Sir, it's out of my hands. The gods want you to go back home, and they want you to delete someone while you're there.
 * Paul Spericki: I'll see you at the "I've-Peaked-and-I'm-Kidding-Myself" party.
 * Agent Steve Lardner: You want to kill the good guy but not be the bad guy. It doesn't work like that. You've got to wait until the bad guy kills the good guy. Then when you kill the bad guy, you're the good guy.
 * Ultimart Clerk: [after the convenience store blows up] No, I'm NOT all right! I'm hurt, I'm pissed... I gotta find a new job!
 * Bob Destepello: You wanna do some blow?
 * Paul Spericki: Wow. Just looking for a little validation for my life but apparently came up SHORT!

Dialogue

 * Martin's target: Whatever it is i'm doing that you don't like... I'll stop doing it.
 * Martin Blank: It's not me. [shoots him dead]

 * Martin Blank: Why are you so interested in me going to my high school reunion?
 * Marcella: I just find it amusing that you came from somewhere.

 * Marcella: You know, when you started getting invited to your ten year high school reunion, time is catching up.
 * Martin Blank: Are you talking about a sense of my own mortality or a fear of death?
 * Marcella: Well, I never really thought about it quite like that.
 * Martin Blank: Did you go to yours?
 * Marcella: Yes, I did. It was as if everyone swelled.

 * Dr. Oatman: Go see some old friends. Drink some punch, visit with what's-her-name. Don't kill anybody for a few days; see what it feels like.
 * Martin Blank: I'll give it a shot.
 * Dr. Oatman: No, don't give it a shot! Don't shoot anything!

 * Martin: I'm a professional killer.
 * Paul: Do you have to do post-graduate work for that, or can you just jump right in?

 * Martin: Debi's house.
 * Paul: Kinda crept up on you, didn't it?
 * Martin: No, you drove us here.

 * Debi Newberry: So, is there a Mrs. Mysterio?
 * Martin Blank: No, but I have a cat.
 * Debi Newberry: It's not the same thing.
 * Martin Blank: Well, you don't know my cat. It's very demanding.
 * Debi Newberry: "It"? You don't know if it's a boy or a girl?
 * Martin Blank: I respect its privacy.

 * Agent McCullers: You got any ideas how you wanna wax this guy?
 * Agent Lardner: Can't you just say "kill"? You always gotta romanticize it.

 * [Martin's secretary has discovered that several enemies are in town]
 * Marcella: [on phone] Sir, I'm becoming concerned for your safety.
 * Martin: I have to go.
 * Marcella: Yeah, well, we all have to go sometime, sir, but we can choose when.
 * Martin: Nobody chooses when.

 * Martin Blank: Whole grain pancakes and an egg-white omelette, please.
 * Waitress: What would you like in your omelette?
 * Martin Blank: Nothing in the omelette. Nothing at all.
 * Waitress: Well, that's not technically an omelette.
 * Martin Blank: Look, I don't want to get into a semantic argument about it, I just want the protein, all right?

 * Mr. Newberry: So, what have you been doing with your life?
 * Martin Blank: Um... professional killer.
 * Mr. Newberry: Oh, good for you! Growth industry.

 * Mr. Newberry: Did I have you figured wrong?
 * Martin: I don't know; I mean, I hope so.
 * Mr. Newberry: I visualized you in a haze as one of those slacker, flannel-wearing, coffee-house misanthropes I've been seeing in Newsweek.
 * Martin: No, no, no, I went the other road. Six figures, doing business with lead-pipe cruelty, mercenary sensibility. You know... sport sex, no real relationships. How about you, how have the years been treating you?
 * Mr. Newberry: Well, you know me, Martin; still the same old sell-out, exploiting the oppressed...
 * Martin: Sure.
 * Mr. Newberry: "Oh what a piece of work is man, how noble..." Oh fuck it, let's have a drink and forget the whole damn thing.

 * [Heading in to the reunion]
 * Debi: I should have worn a skirt.
 * Martin: I should have brought my gun.
 * Debi: What was that?
 * Martin: Should be lots of fun!

 * Ken: I do divorce mainly, some property, some personal injury.
 * Martin: Those all seem kinda related.

 * Debi Newberry: You're a psychopath!
 * Martin Blank: No, no, no, a psychopath kills for no reason. I kill for money. It's a job. That didn't come out right.

 * Martin Blank: You must have done some naughty shit there, Bart! There's a contract out on your life. I should know, I was hired to kill you. But I'm not going to do it. It's either because I'm in love with your daughter, or I have a newfound respect for life.
 * Mr. Grocer: [in pursuit in the next car] That punk is either in love with that guy's daughter, or he has a newfound respect for life!

 * [Debi's dad learns there's a contract on his life.]
 * Mr. Newberry: Design division wants me dead over a leaky sun roof? You want to kill me because of that?
 * Martin Blank: It's not ME! Why does everybody think it's personal?

Cast

 * John Cusack - Martin Blank
 * Alan Arkin - Dr. Oatman
 * Joan Cusack - Marcella
 * Dan Aykroyd - Mr. Grocer
 * Minnie Driver - Debi Newberry
 * Jeremy Piven - Paul Spericki
 * Hank Azaria - Agent Steve Lardner
 * K. Todd Freeman - Agent Kenneth McCullers
 * Benny Urquidez - Felix La Pubelle

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Grosse Pointe Blank


text:
Pushing Tin

Pushing Tin is 1999 Drama movie. Its describes a story of two cocky air traffic controllers that quarrel over proving who's more of a man.
 * Directed by Mike Newell. Written by Glen and Les Charles

A Comedy about Life, Love, Airplanes and Other Bumpy Rides (taglines)

 * Nick Falzone: [Finds Connie crying in the living room] What is it?
 * Connie Falzone: Sit down, Nick. I've been explaining to the kids what it means that daddy... won't be around anymore.
 * Nick Falzone: [drops bouquet] Hey... hey, hey Connie. Wait a minute, Connie... Connie, do you even want to hear my side of this?
 * Connie Falzone: What's your side of my father dying...?

 * Nick Falzone: [to Russell Bell] I'm personally going to see to it that you go down in flames!
 * Airplane Pilot: What?
 * Nick Falzone: Negative, United. That was not to you. Not to you!

 [Jet flies low over Ed's house]
 * Ed Clabes: Dammit! I left a *note*, to use alternate climbouts today. Who's on departure?
 * Tina Leary: Uh, I dunno it's probably Harrison?
 * Ed Clabes: Harrison, that asshole! I'll make sure every seven forty-seven leaving New York tomorrow night blows shingles off his roof!
 * Tina Leary: Well, at least it drowns out Falzone.

 * Mr. Feeney: Controlling air traffic's much like conducting an orchestra.
 * Nick Falzone: Mr. Feeney used a metaphor. Can you say "metaphor"?
 * Know-It-All Schoolboy: That wasn't a metaphor. That was a simile. "Laying pipe" is a metaphor. Did you know that an air traffic controller is responsible for more lives in a shift than a surgeon is in his life? It looks like a computer game.
 * Nick Falzone: This is no game. You make a mistake here, there's no reset button.
 * Schoolboy's mother: Don't touch me.
 * Know-It-All Schoolboy: I hear controllers have the highest rates of depression, nervous breakdowns, heart attacks and alcoholism.
 * Nick Falzone: Don't forget suicide, kid.
 * Schoolboy's mother: He always researches our field trips. He's been online since he was 4.

 * Russell Bell: Thought is the enemy.
 * Nick Falzone: I know. I've been thinking too much. I had that thought actually.

 * Mary Bell: Are there people who find you charming?
 * Nick Falzone: Well they pretend, 'cause I try real hard.

 * Nick Falzone: [to Russell Bell] I called your house and Mary said you'd be out here.
 * Nick Falzone: She sounds good
 * Nick Falzone: Oh, she wanted I give you this message, "See, I told you Colorado wasn't far enough".

 * Nick Falzone: [Nick finds Mary crying in the supermarket] Anything I can do?
 * Mary Bell: No, fine.
 * Supermarket Boy: [to Mary] Is this man bothering you?
 * Supermarket Boy: [to Nick] What did you say to her?
 * Nick Falzone: Hey! Hey, go away. Go battle evil on aisle twelve!

 * Nick Falzone: What do you need?
 * Mary Bell: I told Russell.
 * Nick Falzone: You told him what?
 * Mary Bell: About us.
 * Nick Falzone: Why did you do that? Why would you do something like that? What are you, fucking nuts? Why would you do that?Tell me why you'd do... Are you sick?
 * Mary Bell:Last night was a major moment in our marriage. We reached this honesty and he shared something with me that was unbelievably personal.
 * Nick Falzone: What?!
 * Mary Bell:Like I'm gonna tell you. It was important I share with him in return.
 * Nick Falzone: You know I gotta work with this guy? We work together!
 * Mary Bell: I know. It's okay. He's not upset.
 * Nick Falzone: Yeah, right!
 * Mary Bell: He's all right about it.
 * Nick Falzone: Bullshit! You understand? It's never all right! I'm a man! He's a man! Trust me! It's never all right. Ever! Ever!
 * Mary Bell: He was moved that I was so honest.

 * Nick Falzone: Your singing was beautiful.
 * Mary Bell: My father. He was a professional singer, among other things.
 * Nick Falzone: What are you listening to?
 * Mary Bell: French tapes.
 * Nick Falzone: You're learning French?
 * Mary Bell: I like to learn new things.
 * Nick Falzone: Me too.
 * Mary Bell: You speak it?
 * Nick Falzone: French? Me? No.
 * Mary Bell: I've always wanted to learn, though. They say it's the language of love. I'm not sure how much I love it. But... That is nice. If you're interested, I'll loan you these when I'm finished.
 * Mary Bell: [After she has gone to bed with Nick] I'm so sorry...
 * Nick Falzone: Why?
 * Mary Bell: I wasn't talking to you.
 * Nick Falzone: Who were you talking to?
 * Mary Bell: God, I guess! I read that when a person does not trust another person, it's because they, themselves...
 * Nick Falzone: They themselves what?
 * Mary Bell: Are you turning this around so it's about me? Is it, Nick? Is this about you?
 * Nick Falzone: What are you talking about?
 * Mary Bell: You look me in the eye, and tell me you've never cheated on me.
 * Nick Falzone:Come on. You want me to, I'm gonna be sick. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be sick. This is not okay.
 * Mary Bell: You are an asshole! Capital A-S-H...
 * Nick Falzone: Stop hitting me!
 * Mary Bell: Asshole! O-L-E!
 * Nick Falzone:The captain, here. Shortly, we'll be descending. The cabin crew will complete, I know it's too early to ask you to forgive me. But do you think you could someday imagine starting to think about it? I just want you to know that if the situation were reversed, in my heart I'd forgive you.
 * Mary Bell: There's nothing to forgive.
 * Nick Falzone: What do you mean?
 * Mary Bell: Wanna know why? Because I did it too. Russell et moi. We did the deed. Le grand of freaky-frick. We went all over the house. We went upside down. We went sideways. We should have worn helmets.
 * Mary Bell: Wanna know why? Because I did it too. Russell et moi. We did the deed. Le grand of freaky-frick. We went all over the house. We went upside down. We went sideways. We should have worn helmets.

 * Ed Clabes: [When the girls sit down at the table with the controllers at the diner] I'm married.
 * Nick Falzone: [the controllers all laugh] And you were just about to throw yourself at him, weren't you?

 * Leo Morton: Ed, can you take that Delta?
 * Ed Clabes: No, I can't take the Delta, my airspace is finite.
 * Barry Plotkin: Uh-oh, Ed's going down the drain.
 * Ed Clabes: I am NOT going down the drain.
 * Barry Plotkin: Oh yes you are. It happens every time you use the term "finite."

 * Jethro (Sparta Pilot): Sparta 753 for Newark approach.
 * Nick Falzone: Hey Sparta 753, is that Jethro?
 * Jethro (Sparta Pilot): Yeehaw!
 * Nick Falzone: How's my favorite redneck?
 * Jethro (Sparta Pilot): Falzone, are you mocking me, son?
 * Nick Falzone: Yes, before you run out of cornpone or whatever you use for fuel.
 * Jethro (Sparta Pilot): Shoot, we wouldn't waste good moonshine to fly one of these shit-boxes. Now are you going to give me a vector or am I going to have to find New York by the smell?
 * Nick Falzone: Oh, all right. Sparta 753 turn left heading zero-zeven-zero, maintain two-thousand till localizer. Cleared ILS runway four.
 * Jethro (Sparta Pilot): ILS runway four. Hey let's have dinner some time control. I want to see if you are as ugly as you sound.
 * Nick Falzone: OK, as long as I can find a place where we don't need shoes. Now will your pig be dinning with you or will you be sleeping alone?

 * Dynajet Flight Attendant: Sir, will you please sit down! The Captain is in control of the plane!
 * Nick Falzone: Oh, you think the Captain is in control? Now THAT would really scare me!

 * Ron Hewitt: Hey Russell, we hear this story, they say you stood on a runway in New Mexico and let a 747 part your hair with wake turbulence. That happen?
 * Russell Bell: No.
 * Ron Hewitt: That's what we thought.
 * Russell Bell: No, that was in Arizona.
 * Barry Plotkin: You really did that?
 * Russell Bell: Yeah!
 * Barry Plotkin: Why?
 * Russell Bell: Well, I guess my life was a little short on excitement. Of course, all that's changed tonight.

Nick Falzone

 * Oh, you really think the pilot is controlling this plane? That would really scare me.
 * To hold on to sanity too tight is insane.

Mary Bell

 * Mr. Falzone, what's the fewest number of words you can use to get out that door?
 * [Listening to Nick ramble on about their affair] I am way too sober for this.

Russell Bell

 * If you ever want to sleep at night, don't marry a beautiful girl.
 * I used to bowl, when I was an alcoholic.
 * Human beings can tolerate a lot of pain, you never know until it happens.

Tina Leary

 * Hangin' left today, Ed?

TRACON Manager

 * I know he brings 'em in steep, and tight. But he gets the job done. He pushes tin.

Cast

 * John Cusack as Nick "The Zone" Falzone
 * Billy Bob Thornton as Russell Bell
 * Cate Blanchett as Connie Falzone
 * Angelina Jolie as Mary Bell
 * Jake Weber as Barry Plotkin
 * Kurt Fuller as Ed Clabes
 * Vicki Lewis as Tina Leary
 * Matt Ross as Ron Hewitt
 * Jerry Grayson as Leo Morton
 * Michael Willis as Pat Feeney
 * Philip Akin as Paul
 * Mike O'Malley as Pete
 * Neil Crone as Tom
 * Matt Gordon as Ken
 * Joe Pingue as Mark
 * Dwight McFee as Veteran controller
 * Michael Hyatt as Trudy
 * John Carroll Lynch as Doctor Freeze
 * Kiersten Warren as Karen

title: Pushing Tin


text:
Being John Malkovich

Being John Malkovich is a 1999 film about a puppeteer who discovers a portal that leads literally into the head of the actor John Malkovich.
 * Directed by Spike Jonze. Written by Charlie Kaufman

Ever wanted to be someone else? Now you can. (taglines)

Craig Schwartz

 * Do you see what a metaphysical can of worms this portal is?
 * Nobody's looking for a puppeteer in today's wintry economic climate.
 * I'd fuck me. [Watching television documentary on his puppeteering when he's in John Malkovich's body.]
 * Maxine. Maxine. I love you, Maxine. Oh, look away. Look away [Looking through Emily's eyes at the end]

Maxine Lund

 * Do you have any idea what it's like to have two people look at you, with total lust and devotion, through the same pair of eyes?
 * Behind the stubble and the too-prominent brow and the male-pattern baldness... I sensed your feminine longing. And it just slew me.
 * Sounds great. Who the fuck is John Malkovich?

Lotte Schwartz

 * Help! He's locking me in a cage!
 * Don't stand in the way of my actualization as a man.

John Malkovich

 * I have been to the dark side. I have seen a world that no man should see.
 * That portal is mine, and it must be sealed forever for the love of God!
 * It's my head, Schwartz! It's my head!

Charlie Sheen

 * Truth is for suckers, Johnny Boy.
 * Maybe she's using you to channel some dead lesbian lover.
 * Hot lesbian witches! Think about it!  It's fucking genius!
 * You're nuts to let a girl go that calls you Lotte, I tell you that as a friend.

Others

 * Dr. Lester: Forever doomed to watch the world through someone else's eyes.

Dialogue

 * Lotte: You are so full of shit Maxine!
 * Maxine: I know.

 * Lotte: For the first time, everything just felt right.
 * Craig: It's just a phase. It's the thrill of seeing through somebody else's eyes.

 * Maxine: So I've been thinking...Is this Malkovich fellow appealing?
 * Craig: Maxine! Yes, of course, Maxine.  He's a celebrity.
 * Maxine: Good. We'll sell tickets!
 * Craig: Tickets to Malkovich?
 * Maxine: Exactly! $200 a pop!

 * Dr. Lester: Ah, tell me Lotte, can you understand a word I'm saying?
 * Lotte: Oh yes, Dr. Lester, absolutely. You were just explaining the, um, nutritional value of ingesting minerals through a colloidal form, which I personally couldn't agree more with.
 * Dr. Lester: Oh, be still my heart!

 * John M.: The...this...the weird thing is this Maxine likes to call me Lotte.
 * Charlie Sheen: Ouch!  That is hot!  Maybe she's using you to channel some dead lesbian lover...Sounds like my kind of gal!  Let me know when you're done with her, yeah?
 * John M.: What are you talking about, done with her?  Tonight really freaked me out!

 * John M.: Charlie, I don't know anything about the girl, man! She could be like a fucking witch or something!
 * Charlie Sheen: That's even better! Hot lesbian witches! Think about it! It's fucking genius!

 * Dr. Lester: Any questions?
 * Craig: Well, just one.  Why are these ceilings so low?
 * Dr. Lester: Low overhead my boy!  We pass the savings onto you!  Hahaha!

 * John M.: I have been to the dark side and back!  I have seen a world that no man should see!
 * Craig: Really? For most people, it's a rather pleasant experience.

 * Craig: I've fallen in love, and this is what people who've fallen in love look like!
 * Maxine: Well, you picked the unrequited variety. It's very bad for the skin.

 * Dr. Lester: Floris!  Get Guinness on the phone!
 * Floris: Ah, yes sir, Genghis Kahn Capone. Fine.
 * Dr. Lester: Damn fine woman, Floris.  I don't know how she puts up with this speech impediment of mine.

 * John Malkovich: That portal is mine, and it must be sealed forever for the love of God!
 * Craig: With all respect, sir, I discovered that portal. Its my livelihood.
 * John M.: It's my head, Schwartz, and I will see you in court!
 * Craig: And who's to say I won't be seeing what you're seeing... in court?

 * Craig: There's a tiny door in that empty office. It's a portal, Maxine. It takes you inside John Malkovich. You see the world through John Malkovich's eyes, then, after about fifteen minutes, you're spit out into a ditch on the side of The New Jersey Turnpike.
 * Maxine: Sounds delightful. Who the fuck is John Malkovich?
 * Craig: He's an actor. One of the great American actors of the 20th century.
 * Maxine: What's he been in?
 * Craig: Lots of things. He's very well respected. That jewel thief movie, for example. The point is that this is a very odd thing, supernatural, for lack of a better word. It raises all sorts of philosophical questions about the nature of self, about the existence of the soul. Am I me? Is Malkovich Malkovich? Was the Buddha right, is duality an illusion? Do you realize what a metaphysical can of worms this portal is? I don't think I can go on living my life as I have lived it.

Taglines

 * Ever wanted to be someone else? Now you can.
 * Ever Wanted To Be Someone Else?
 * Be All That Someone Else Can Be.

Cast

 * John Cusack — Craig Schwartz
 * Cameron Diaz — Lotte Schwartz
 * Catherine Keener — Maxine
 * John Malkovich — John Horatio Malkovich
 * Orson Bean — Dr. Lester
 * Mary Kay Place — Floris (Lester's secretary/receptionist)
 * Charlie Sheen — Charlie

title: Being John Malkovich


text:
Bruno Bauer

Bruno Bauer (6 September 1809 – 13 April 1882), known as a Young Hegelian, was a German Lutheran theologian, philosopher and historian.

Quotes

 * There is no longer any religion when there is no longer any privileged religion. Take from religion its exclusive power and it will no longer exist.
 * As quoted in Karl Marx's "The Jewish Question" by ; as translated in Karl Marx, Frederick Engels : Collected Works (1975) edited by International Publishers

title: Bruno Bauer


text:
User:Matusz

To leave any comments for me go to my primary discussion.

title: User:Matusz


text:
Animaniacs

 * Seasons: 1 2 3 4 5 | Main

Animaniacs (1993–1998) is an American animated comedy musical television series created by Tom Ruegger. The series premiered on Fox Kids on September 13, 1993. It was moved to Kids' WB on September 9, 1995 and ended on November 14, 1998.

Seasons

 * Season 1
 * Season 2
 * Season 3
 * Season 4
 * Season 5

Cast

 * Digeri Dingo, Yakko Warner, Dr. Scratchnsniff, and Pinky (voiced by )
 * Wakko Warner (voiced by )
 * Babs Bunny, and Dot Warner (voiced by )
 * Brain, Foreman, and Squit (voiced by )
 * Bobby (voiced by )
 * Pesto (voiced by )
 * Slappy Squirrel (voiced by )
 * Skippy Squirrel (voiced by )
 * Rita (voiced by )
 * Ralph the Security Guard, Buttons, Gogo Dodo, and Runt (voiced by Frank Welker)
 * Mindy (voiced by )
 * Minerva Mink (voiced by )
 * Fifi La Fume, Li'l Sneezer, Margot Mallard, Patmay K. Pig, Scentenna, Narrator, Announcer, and Skunk Goddess (voiced by )
 * MC Skat Kat (voiced by )
 * Yakety Yak (voiced by )
 * Tibi the Take it Back Butterfly (voiced by )

title: Animaniacs


text:
Super Troopers

Super Troopers is a 2001 comedy film about bored highway patrol officers in a remote part of Vermont.
 * Written and directed by Broken Lizard.

Altered State Police (taglines)

Mac

 * YOU BOYS LIKE MEX-E-CO?!?! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
 * [cross-eyed and with slight lisp] Do we look like the two dumbest guys in the world to you? Is that why you treat us with such disrespect?
 * One... Two... Three... Do It!
 * Do what? GO FUCK YOUR SELF!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Farva

 * I guess that's it for the old locker. She stinks like ass but I'll still miss her. I guess you could say that about all my girls.
 * [refusing Captain Grady's bribe] I'm all highway.
 * Liter is French for give me some fuckin' cola or I'll break vous's fuckin' lip!
 * I don't want a large Farva. I want a goddamn liter o' cola!
 * I just lost a buck... to myself!
 * I'll take six schlitzes... or whatever's free.
 * I gotta bust criminals! It's what I gotta do!

Foster

 * What size cells are these? Eight by eight?  Ours are nine by nine... no big deal.
 * Oh, biker... I'm an idiot. [when Foster realizes that he misunderstood Ursula's disguise suggestion and dressed as a bicyclist]

Rabbit

 * You are freakin' out....man.
 * [After Thorny says, "You smell somethin', Rabbit?"] *Sniffs* Fear.
 * What, are you gonna light my ass on fire?

Thorny

 * Canada, eh? Almost made it.
 * [Deep voice] Mother of God.
 * 'Some male figure'? I'm his dad!
 * I am all that is MAN!
 * What? They can't lump us in with that fuckin' Martian.
 * [Messing around with a photo on the station computer] Enhance... Enhance... Enhance...
 * Alright, who wants a moustache ride?

Captain John O'Hagen

 * Sorry about that, Bruce. These boys get that syrup in 'em, they get all antsy in their pantsy.
 * Let me guess- you just humped the mayor's wife and burned down city hall.
 * [A repeated, sarcastic line, often said with an Irish accent] I'll believe that when me shit turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbet.
 * I scratched your back, Bruce! I scratched it good and hard! Now either you scratch my back, or you get my size ten boot up your ass!
 * Of *course* they started the fight! Now they've taken a jurisdictional grievance against us! I mean a murder on the highway! And you give them the investigation! Christ! We look like a bunch of pussies!
 * [About Farva, realizing he has betrayed O'Hagen and the others] We shoulda took him out back and shot him a long time ago.
 * I invented this gag, Rabbit! Only in my day, the rookie got naked! [Fires the pistol he is holding at a State Police cruiser, shattering a window] And we also used blanks... You're a sick motherfucker, Mac.
 * Look what I found! A two-by-four!
 * [Suddenly grabbing the radio while Foster is trying to apologize] URSULA! I'M NAKED!

Dialogue

 * Thorny: License and registration.
 * Driver: Uh, Officer, I know that-
 * Thorny: License and registration, please.
 * Driver: The regis-
 * Thorny: You know how fast you were goin'?
 * Driver: What?
 * Rabbit: How fast you were goin'?
 * Driver: Uh, 65?
 * Thorny: 63.
 * Driver: Officer, isn't-- isn't the speed limit 65?
 * Thorny: Yeah, it is. Where you boys headed?
 * Passenger: Canada.
 * Driver: C-- Canada. We're goin' over the border to Canada for some french fries and gravy, sir.
 * Thorny: Canada, huh? Almost made it. [pause] Are you okay?
 * Driver: Yeah, sure.
 * Thorny: Yes, sir?
 * Driver: Yes, sir.
 * Thorny: Now, did you say, 'Yes, sir'?
 * Rabbit: I think he said, 'Yeah, sure.'
 * Passenger: What'd you say, man?
 * Driver: Well, I said, 'Yeah, sure,' but what, literally, I said was, 'Yeah, sure, sir.'
 * Thorny: So you are okay then?
 * Driver: Yes, sir.
 * Thorny: You smell somethin', Rabbit?
 * Rabbit: [Sniffs] Fear.

 * Thorny: Do you know why I pulled you over?
 * Driver: Uhhh...
 * Thorny: Littering. [holds up bag of marijuana]
 * Driver: Oh, officer, that's not ours.
 * Kid in back: [deep groan] Candy bars!
 * Thorny: Littering and... Littering and... Littering and... [the rest of the car joins in, causing the kid in the back to freak out from the echoes] Littering and smoking the reefer. Now to teach you boys a lesson, me and officer Rabbit are going to stand here while you three smoke the whole bag.
 * Kid in Back: Please, no.
 * Rabbit: Please, yes.
 * [A white Mazda Miata speeds by]
 * Mac: FUCKIN' PIG!
 * Thorny: Mother of God.

 * Foster: Aw, Mac, you fucker!
 * Mac: Gree-tings. [Laughs] You guys are too slow.
 * Foster: You killed my dummy.
 * Thorny: Mac, now I'm going to pay you. But I shouldn't, 'cause I knew it was you the whole time.
 * Mac: Aw, Thorny, don't lie in front of the rookie. It sets a bad example.

 * Thorny: Foster, where are your shoes?
 * Foster: What, are you the shoe police now?
 * Thorny: I am, and you owe me 20 laps around the bar. Lets go.
 * Foster: Your black magic only works on the rookie.
 * Thorny: That's brown magic.

 * O'Hagen: Farva. Forgot the coffee.
 * Farva: My bad, Cap.
 * O'Hagen: All right, all right; let's get started. I got the latest shit list, gentlemen. It's down to Flagstone, Guilford, Deer Lick, and us. And you can bet your sweet butts if we keep up these low numbers, we're gonna get the big, ugly axe.
 * Mac: Who'll bust heads on the highway?
 * O'Hagen: The goddamn local cops, that's who! And you better believe that Grady and his goons have got a copy of this list, so we need to step it up.
 * Farva: [leaning out of the break room] Who wants cream? Nobody? Okay, no cream.
 * O'Hagen: Foster, how many tickets did you issue last week?
 * Foster: Uh, I don't have my figures here in front of me...
 * O'Hagen: Three.
 * Foster: Can't make 'em speed.
 * O'Hagen: Try hiding.
 * Thorny: And grow a goddamn mustache, would ya?
 * Foster: Hey, I haven't shaved in two weeks! I swear!
 * Farva: Coffee served! No, no, that one's for Rabbit!
 * Rabbit: Oh look, a bar of soap.
 * Farva: Oh ho ho, Shit I got you good you fucker!
 * Mac:: [With mocking voice and fake lisp] Awesome prank Farva.
 * Farva: It's better than the shit you pull, Mac!
 * O'Hagen: Look, guys... every Thursday night I come in here, to play cards, and they always have my favorite game on the table. I like that. I like it here. [Sees the troopers talking, ignoring him] Oh, hell, give me the Goddamn soap! [Grabs the bar of soap Farva placed in Rabbit's coffee cup, bites off a chunk of it and spits it out] We got fifty miles of highway here! That stretch of highway is ours, and I'll be damned if we're gonna let Grady and those buttheads get their hands on it! Thorny, you're the ranking officer here. Let's do our jobs and keep this place open, huh?! Let's do it! Farva! Your suspension continues. Hit the radio!

 * O'Hagen: I just got off the phone with Tom McCardle From the budget committee. This thing with Farva screwed our pooch.
 * Thorny: What? They can't lump us in with that fuckin' Martian.
 * O'Hagen: We're all in the same boat, fellas.
 * Mac: But our shenanigans are cheeky and fun.
 * Thorny: Yeah, his shenanigans are cruel and tragic.
 * Foster: Which wouldn't make them shenanigans at all, really.
 * Mac: [Irish voice] Evil shenanigans!
 * O'Hagen: [visibly annoyed] I swear to God, I'll pistol whip the next guy that says 'shenanigans!'
 * Mac: Hey Farva, what's the name of that restaurant you like with all the goofy shit on the walls and the mozzarella sticks?
 * Farva: You mean Shenanigans'?
 * Mac, Foster and Thorny: Oooooooooooooooooo! [Laughing, Mac and Thorny offer O'Hagen their pistols]
 * Farva: You're talking about Shenanigans', right?
 * O'Hagen: Put those away!

 * Grady: I'm sorry about that delousing. Just standard procedure.
 * Farva: It's powdered sugar.
 * Grady: The lice ... hate the sugar. So anyway-
 * Farva: [Interrupting] It's delicious.
 * Grady: Good, good...
 * [...]
 * [Grady is trying to bribe Farva to betray the State Police]
 * Grady: Now I have talked to the Governor myself. She's gonna shut your station down, son; it's gonna happen. And when that happens I could really use a good cop like yourself. So... Can we make a deal?
 * Farva: [flatly] I'm all highway.

 * Mac: Come in Radio.
 * Farva: Don't call me Radio, Unit 91.
 * Mac: Don't call me Unit 91, Radio!
 * Farva: ...Are we done?
 * Mac: Yeah okay Radio. We got a suspicious vehicle, white Caprice, Vermont Plates, Tijuana, Gringo, Oner, Fiver, Zero.
 * Farva: Roger, checking...Unit 91 that license plate belongs to a local Spurburry Police vehicle.
 * Mac: It does?! Oh my gosh!
 * Farva: ...Very funny 91.

 * German Man: I'm sorry officer for the speeding violation, I'm so used to driving on the autobahn.
 * German Woman: Ich finde er sieht wie Shaun Cassidy aus. [I think he looks like Shaun Cassidy.]
 * German Man: Ja, das finde ich auch, yummi yummi. [I think so too, yummi yummi.]
 * Rabbit: Do you know why I pulled you over?
 * German Man: Because we were going way too fast.
 * Rabbit: Ja.
 * German Man: Ja. Well the thing is I cannot afford to have another ticket on mein Porsche. Is there something I could do for you, or perhaps something my wife could do? Perhaps there is something you would like to do to her?
 * German Woman: Is there maybe something you would like me to do to you? Or maybe something you would like to do to me? Hmm?
 * German Woman: Maybe some hard spanking und cuffing is in order.

 * Farva: Give me a double bacon cheeseburger.
 * Dimpus Burger Guy: [into microphone] Double baca cheeseburger. It's for a cop.
 * Farva: What the hell's that all about? You gonna spit in it now?
 * Dimpus Burger Guy: No, I just told him that so he makes it good. [into microphone] Don't spit in that cop's burger.
 * Farva:' Yeah, thanks.
 * Second Dimpus Guy: Roger, holding the spit.
 * [...]
 * Dimpus Burger Guy: Uhh, right. Beverage?
 * Farva: Gimme a liter o' cola.
 * Dimpus Burger Guy: [into the mic] Liter Cola? Do we sell Liter Cola?
 * Thorny: Will you just order a large, Farva?
 * Farva: I don't want a large Farva. I want a goddamn liter o' cola!
 * Dimpus Burger Guy: [to Farva] I don't know what that is!
 * Farva: [enraged and grabbing the Dimpus Burger Guy] Liter is French for give me my fuckin' cola before I break vous fuckin' lip!
 * Dimpus Burger Guy: ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT, RELAX!
 * [later, Farva pulls a sweepstakes sticker off his liter o' cola to find a hole was cut in the cup]
 * Farva: Dammit, you burger punk! You son of a bitch! [Runs over to the counter, jumps over it, and tackles the Dimpus Burger Guy]
 * Dimpus Burger Guy: [throws a tray of fries in the air as Farva tackles him] AAHHH!

 * Rabbit: Wait, so the local cops are selling Afghany grass to the Canadians? Assholes.
 * Thorny: No Rabbit, it's coming in from Canada.
 * Rabbit: Ah! Canadian grass. [nods] Assholes.
 * Thorny: The local mothers are running protection for 'em.
 * Rabbit: Oh. I guess I'm the asshole then...

 * [Captain O'Hagen is watching security camera footage from the Dimpus Burger that Farva and Thorny recently visited. An enraged Farva repeatedly attacks the Dimpus Burger Guy with food, cups, etc. despite the efforts of Thorny and Dimpus Burger employees to restrain him.]
 * O'Hagen: That's it- you're off the road, never again.
 * Farva: Sir, it was not my fault!
 * O'Hagen: And neither was the Goddamn school bus! You know, there was a time we'd take a guy like you out back and beat you with a hose; now you got your Goddamn unions.
 * Farva: Cap, you know I'm not a pro-union guy.
 * O'Hagen: And you're banned from Dimpus Burger!
 * Farva: Damn!
 * O'Hagen: Get some gloves. From now on, you're my cleaning lady. BEAT IT!

 * O'Hagen: Look, I'm done dickin' around. Either you let us in on this investigation or I'm going to embarrass you personally.
 * Grady: Oh, what? Like naked in a dream, embarrassed?
 * O'Hagen: No, no. More like back in '77 when you got caught fuckin' your cousin, embarrassed.
 * Grady: She's not my cousin! [Hangs up]

Cat Game

 * [Foster and Mac have pulled a man over for speeding and are deciding what game to play]
 * Mac: All right, how about "Cat Game?"
 * Foster: Cat Game? What's the record?
 * Mac: Thorny did six, but I think you can do ten.
 * Foster: Ten? Starting right 'meow?'
 * [Mac laughs - they walk up to the car, and Foster taps on the driver side]
 * Larry Johnson: Sorry about the...
 * Foster: All right meow. Hand over your license and registration.
 * [the man hands him his license]
 * Foster: Your registration? Hurry up meow.
 * [Mac ticks off two fingers]
 * Larry Johnson: Sorry.
 * [the man laughs a little]
 * Foster: Is there something funny here boy?
 * Larry Johnson: Oh, no.
 * Foster: Then why you laughing, Mister... Larry Johnson?
 * [pause]
 * Foster: All right meow, where were we?
 * Larry Johnson: Excuse me, are you saying meow?
 * Foster: Am I saying meow?
 * [Mac puts his hands up for the fourth one, but makes an "eehhh" facial expression, as he is considering the last one]
 * Larry Johnson: I thought...
 * Foster: Don't think boy. Meow, do you know how fast you were going?
 * [man laughs]
 * Foster: Meow what is so damn funny?
 * Larry Johnson: I could have sworn you said meow.
 * Foster: Do I look like a cat to you, boy? Am I jumpin' around all nimbly-bimbly from tree to tree?
 * [Mac is gut-busting laughing]
 * Foster: Am I drinking milk from a saucer?
 * [feigned anger]
 * Foster: Do you see me eating mice?!
 * Foster: [Mac and the man are laughing their heads off now] You stop laughing right meow!
 * Larry Johnson: [Stops and swallows hard] Yes sir.
 * Foster: Meow, I'm gonna have to give you a ticket on this one. No buts meow. It's the law.
 * [rips off the ticket and hands it to the man]
 * Foster: Not so funny meow, is it?
 * Foster: [Foster gets up to leave, but Mac shakes his hands at him, indicating only nine meows] Meow!

Taglines

 * Altered State Police
 * It's their highway. You're just driving on it.
 * You don't mess with the law. The law messes with you.

Cast

 * Jay Chandrasekhar as State Trooper Arcot 'Thorny' Ramathorn
 * Kevin Heffernan as State Trooper Rodney 'Rod' Farva
 * Steve Lemme as State Trooper MacIntyre 'Mac' Womack
 * Paul Soter as State Trooper Jeff Foster
 * Erik Stolhanske as State Trooper Robert 'Rabbit' Roto
 * Brian Cox as Captain John O'Hagen
 * Daniel von Bargen as Police Chief Bruce Grady
 * Jim Gaffigan as Larry Johnson

title: Super Troopers