Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.: "A Strong Smell of Turpentine Prevails Throughout"

Noting this story only because I always seem to attribute it falsely, to Carl Sagan, and also for humor value.

From an 1870 lecture of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (note: the physician, not his son, who served on the Supreme Court of the United States) which was published in 1879:

I once inhaled a pretty full dose of ether, with the determination to put on record, at the earliest moment of regaining consciousness, the thought I should find uppermost in my mind. The mighty music of the triumphal march into nothingness reverberated through my brain, and filled me with a sense of infinite possibilities, which made me an archangel for the moment. The veil of eternity was lifted. The one great truth which underlies all human experience, and is the key to all the mysteries that philosophy has sought in vain to solve, flashed upon me in a sudden revelation. Henceforth all was clear: a few words had lifted my intelligence to the level of the knowledge of the cherubim. As my natural condition returned, I remembered my resolution; and, staggering to my desk, I wrote, in ill-shaped, straggling characters, the all-embracing truth still glimmering in my consciousness. The words were these (children may smile; the wise will ponder): “A strong smell of turpentine prevails throughout.”

Sources:
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/03/31/turpentine-prevails/
http://books.google.com/books?id=xZs9AAAAYAAJ&q=inhaled#v=snippet&