Frases de Oliver Wendell Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Fecha de nacimiento: 29. Agosto 1809
Fecha de muerte: 7. Octubre 1894
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. fue un médico de profesión, que ganó fama como escritor y se convirtió en uno de los poetas estadounidenses más reconocidos del siglo XIX. Uno de sus hijos, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., fue uno de los más célebres jueces del Tribunal Supremo de los Estados Unidos.
Era hijo de Abiel Holmes , un clérigo calvinista y ávido historiador que escribió los Anales de América y poesías, y su segunda mujer, Sarah Wendell, hija de una importante familia de Nueva York.
Estudió en la Phillips Academy en Andover, Massachusetts, y en el Harvard College. Ganó fama con su poema «Old Ironsides» sobre la fragata decimonónica USS Constitution, cuyo destino era el desguace. El poema tuvo tanta fama que se decidió convertir a la fragata en un monumento en vez de desguazarla. En otro de sus poemas, se refirió al terremoto que sacudió Lisboa en el año 1755.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, fue uno de los fundadores del pragmatismo. Perteneció a un grupo llamado «El club de los metafísicos», con colaboradores de la talla de Chauncey Wright, Charles Peirce o William James. El fruto de este club fue el pragmatismo, movimiento filosófico basado en las ideas de Bain, Darwin y Kant.
Frases Oliver Wendell Holmes
„Treat bad men exactly as if they were insane.“
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, libro Elsie Venner
Elsie Venner (1859), Context: 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...
„A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.“
— Oliver Wendell Holmes
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859), Context: 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.
„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.“
— Oliver Wendell Holmes
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858), Context: 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.
„We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible.“
— Oliver Wendell Holmes
The Poet at the Breakfast Table (1872), Context: 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".
