Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
| NUMBER: | 1282 |
| AUTHOR: | Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841–1935) |
| QUOTATION: | Every living sentence which shows a mind at work for itself is to be welcomed. It is not the first use but the tiresome repetition of inadequate catch words which I am observing—phrases which originally were contributions, but which, by their very felicity, delay further analysis for fifty years. That comes from the same source as dislike of novelty—intellectual indolence or weakness—a slackening in the eternal pursuit of the more exact. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Holmes was an associate justice of the supreme court of Massachusetts. |
| SUBJECTS: | Oratory |