“Do your best, and you will find your market value in due time.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. | V2Melody

“Do your best, and you will find your market value in due time.”

A concise piece of practical encouragement for an aspiring writer · Letter concerning literary prospects, 1882

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

About Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

29 August 1809–7 October 1894

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., born 29 August 1809 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and dead 7 October 1894 in Boston, was one of the most recognizably versatile figures in nineteenth-century American culture: physician, medical reformer, anatomist, professor, poet, novelist, essayist, conversational satirist, and public…

More by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Poems by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

More remarks by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

“I know very well that I am a lazy fellow and a procrastinator.”

An early example of Holmes's willingness to laugh at his own shortcomings · Letter to Phineas Barnes, January 31, 1828

“The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.”

Emphasising direction and progress rather than present circumstances · The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table

“I think I may make a tolerable physician.”

A modest assessment of his emerging professional ambition · Letter to Phineas Barnes, 1830