I have never heard anyone profess indifference to a boat race. Why should you row a boat race? Why endure long months of pain in preparation of a fie… - Oliver Wendell Holmes

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I have never heard anyone profess indifference to a boat race. Why should you row a boat race? Why endure long months of pain in preparation of a fierce half hour, or even six minutes, that will leave you all but dead? Does anyone ask the question? Is there anyone who would not go through all its costs, and more, for the moment when anguish breaks into triumph - or even for the glory of having nobly lost? Is life less than a boat race? If a man will give all the blood in his body to win the one, will he not spend all the might of his soul to prevail in the other?

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About Oliver Wendell Holmes

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (8 March 1841 – 6 March 1935) was an American jurist and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932; he was often called "The Great Dissenter", and was the son of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Native Name: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Alternative Names: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. • Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr • Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr. • Oliver Wendell, Jr. Holmes • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr • Oliver Wendell Holmes, jr. • Oliver W. Holmes Jr. • Oliver Holmes Jr. • Oliver Holmes • Oliver W. Holmes
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Additional quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Life is a roar of bargain and battle, but in the very heart of it there rises a mystic spiritual tone that gives meaning to the whole. It transmutes the dull details into romance. It reminds us that our only but wholly adequate significance is as parts of the unimaginable whole. It suggests that even while living we are living to ends outside ourselves
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My old formula is that a man should be an enthusiast in the front of his head and a sceptic in the back. Do his damndest without believing that the cosmos would collapse if he failed. One should have the same courage for failure that many have for death.
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