A Quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used till they are seasoned. — © Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used till they are seasoned.
In the construction of houses, choice of woods is made. Straight un-knotted timber of good appearance is used for the revealed pillars, straight timber with small defects is used for the inner pillars. Timbers of the finest appearance, even if a little weak, is used for the thresholds, lintels, doors, and sliding doors, and so on. Good strong timber, though it be gnarled and knotted, can always be used discreetly in construction.
Of course I have used dissonance in my time, but there has been too much dissonance. Bach used dissonance as good salt for his music. Others applied pepper, seasoned the dishes more and more highly, till all healthy appetites were sick and until the music was nothing but pepper.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul, like seasoned timber, never gives.
Quotation, like much better things, has its abuses. One may quote till one compiles. The ancient lawyers used to quote at the bar till they had stagnated their own cause.
When the woodpecker is searching for food, or laying siege to some hidden grub, the sound of his hammer is dead or muffled and is heard but a few yards. It is only upon dry, seasoned timber, freed of its bark, that he beats his reveille to spring and wooes his mate.
It is the timber of poetry that wears most surely, and there is no timber that has not strong roots among the clay and worms.
Environmentalists and rank and file timber workers becoming allies is the most dangerous thing in the world to the timber industry!
all the vices are seasoned with pride just as the virtues are seasoned and enlivened by charity.
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, the mere materials with which wisdom builds, till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place, does but encumber whom it seems to enrich. Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
The seasoned woman is going to offer a more seasoned character.
Till the sun of knowledge shines on the ignorant masses and till all the men start hating violence, the world shall find no peace!
So the problem in the West is that, especially in places like the USA, a person will obtain this much knowledge and immediately think that they have a large amount of knowledge. And then start to act on the basis of what they think, they posses. Instead of having this much knowledge and realizing that in fact this is only this much knowledge and the amount of where you can go there is where you came is much bigger than where you've already gotten.
The knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses and lichens and for the most part inaccessible and going to waste; the knowledge of the man of science is like timber collected in yards for public works, which still supports a green sprout here and there, but even this is liable to dry rot.
Look at timber prices in the late '90s, at around $50. If you count the true damage of cutting down forests, the resultant flooding, insurance claims, and so on, then the timber price should have been $100.
I used to watch Oprah Winfrey, and whenever she used to lose weight, I used to be like, 'How's she losing it? What is she doing?' But it's all about education and knowledge, feeding yourself and knowing that too much carbs is what gets us fat.
In most mills, only the best portions of the best trees are used, while the ruins are left on the ground to feed great fires which kill much of what is left of the less desirable timber, together with the seedlings on which the permanence of the forest depends.
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