Top 100 Oliver Goldsmith Quotes
#1. ... The more enormous our wealth, the more extensive our fears, all our possessions are paled up with new edicts every day, and hung round with gibbets to scare every invader.
Oliver Goldsmith
#2. See me, how calm I am.
Ay, people are generally calm at the misfortunes of others.
Oliver Goldsmith
#3. Whenever you see a gaming table be sure to know fortune is not there. Rather she is always in the company of industry.
Oliver Goldsmith
#4. A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation; therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future.
Oliver Goldsmith
#7. The youth who follows his appetites too soon seizes the cup, before it has received its best ingredients, and by anticipating his pleasures, robs the remaining parts of life of their share, so that his eagerness only produces manhood of imbecility and an age of pain.
Oliver Goldsmith
#9. With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.
Oliver Goldsmith
#10. The little mind who loves itself, will wr'te and think with the vulgar; but the great mind will be bravely eccentric, and scorn the beaten road, from universal benevolence.
Oliver Goldsmith
#11. Thus 'tis with all; their chief and constant care Is to seem everything but what they are.
Oliver Goldsmith
#12. At this he laughed, and so did we: the jests of the rich are ever successful.
Oliver Goldsmith
#13. Philosophy ... should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of.
Oliver Goldsmith
#14. Mortifications are often more painful than real calamities.
Oliver Goldsmith
#15. The world is like a vast sea: mankind like a vessel sailing on its tempestuous bosom ... [T]he sciences serve us for oars.
Oliver Goldsmith
#16. It seemed to me pretty plain, that they had more of love than matrimony in them.
Oliver Goldsmith
#17. If frugality were established in the state, and if our expenses were laid out to meet needs rather than superfluities of life, there might be fewer wants, and even fewer pleasures, but infinitely more happiness.
Oliver Goldsmith
#18. Death when unmasked shows us a friendly face and is a terror only at a distance.
Oliver Goldsmith
#19. Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.
Oliver Goldsmith
#20. Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other.
Oliver Goldsmith
#21. Whatever be the motives which induce men to write,
whether avarice or fame,
the country becomes more wise and happy in which they most serve for instructors.
Oliver Goldsmith
#22. Taste is the power of relishing or rejecting whatever is offered for the entertainment of the imagination.
Oliver Goldsmith
#23. To aim at excellence, our reputation, and friends, and all must be ventured; to aim at the average we run no risk and provide little service.
Oliver Goldsmith
#24. Let observation with observant view,
Observe mankind from China to Peru.
Oliver Goldsmith
#25. He who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day;
But he who is battle slain
Can never rise to fight again
Oliver Goldsmith
#26. True generosity is a duty as indispensably necessary as those imposed upon us by the law. It is a rule imposed upon us by reason, which should be the sovereign law of a rational being.
Oliver Goldsmith
#27. Blest be those feasts, with simple plenty crowned, Where all the ruddy family around Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale.
Oliver Goldsmith
#30. There are but few talents requisite to become a popular preacher; for the people are easily pleased if they perceive any endeavors in the orator to please them. The meanest qualifications will work this effect if the preacher sincerely sets about it.
Oliver Goldsmith
#31. Friendship is made up of esteem and pleasure; pity is composed of sorrow and contempt: the mind may for some time fluctuate between them, but it can never entertain both at once.
Oliver Goldsmith
#32. Fine declamation does not consist in flowery periods, delicate allusions of musical cadences, but in a plain, open, loose style, where the periods are long and obvious, where the same thought is often exhibited in several points of view.
Oliver Goldsmith
#34. Unequal combinations are always disadvantageous to the weaker side.
Oliver Goldsmith
#35. Persecution is a tribute the great must always pay for preeminence.
Oliver Goldsmith
#36. Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, I see the lords of humankind pass by.
Oliver Goldsmith
#39. And what is friendship but a name, A charm that lulls to sleep, A shade that follows wealth or fame, And leaves the wretch to weep?
Oliver Goldsmith
#40. Whichever way we look the prospect is disagreeable. Behind, we have left pleasures we shall never enjoy, and therefore regret; and before, we see pleasures which we languish to possess, and are consequently uneasy till we possess them.
Oliver Goldsmith
#41. You, that are going to be married, think things can never be done too fast: but we that are old, and know what we are about, must elope methodically, madam.
Oliver Goldsmith
#42. Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same.
Oliver Goldsmith
#43. I love everything that is old; old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.
Oliver Goldsmith
#44. The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.
Oliver Goldsmith
#45. A boy will learn more true wisdom in a public school in a year than by a private education in five. It is not from masters, but from their equals, that youth learn a knowledge of the world.
Oliver Goldsmith
#46. In all my wanderings round this world of care,
In all my griefs-and God has given my share-
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down.
Oliver Goldsmith
#47. The miscellaneous poetry of this age is nothing like the last; it is very poor.
Oliver Goldsmith
#48. To the last moment of his breath, On hope the wretch relies; And even the pang preceding death Bids expectation rise.
Oliver Goldsmith
#49. They may talk of a comet, or a burning mountain, or some such bagatelle; but to me a modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation.
Oliver Goldsmith
#50. [T]here are depths of thousands of miles which are hidden from our inquiry. The only tidings we have from those unfathomable regions are by means of volcanoes, those burning mountains that seem to discharge their materials from the lowest abysses of the earth.
Oliver Goldsmith
#51. The work of eradicating crimes is not by making punishment familiar, but formidable.
Oliver Goldsmith
#52. Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.
Oliver Goldsmith
#53. Blame where you must, be candid where you can, And be each critic the Good-natured Man.
Oliver Goldsmith
#54. The ambitious are forever followed by adulation for they receive the most pleasure from flattery.
Oliver Goldsmith
#56. I fancy the character of a poet is in every country the same,
fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future; his conversation that of a man of sense, his actions those of a fool.
Oliver Goldsmith
#58. A kind and gentle heart he had, To comfort friends and foes; The naked every day he clad When he put on his clothes.
Oliver Goldsmith
#59. And e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart distrusting asks if this be joy.
Oliver Goldsmith
#60. If the soul be happily disposed, every thing becomes capable of affording entertainment, and distress will almost want a name.
Oliver Goldsmith
#62. All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, praised a little, and appreciated a little.
Oliver Goldsmith
#63. There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.
Oliver Goldsmith
#64. Were I to be angry at men being fools, I could here find ample room for declamation; but, alas! I have been a fool myself; and why should I be angry with them for being something so natural to every child of humanity?
Oliver Goldsmith
#65. Aromatic plants bestow no spicy fragrance while they grow; but crush'd or trodden to the ground, diffuse their balmy sweets around.
Oliver Goldsmith
#66. We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all our adventures were by the fireside, and all our migrations from the blue bed to the brown.
Oliver Goldsmith
#67. Amid thy desert-walks the lapwing flies, And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.
Oliver Goldsmith
#69. The heart of every man lies open to the shafts of correction if the archer can take proper aim.
Oliver Goldsmith
#70. Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.
Oliver Goldsmith
#71. I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.
Oliver Goldsmith
#72. In two opposite opinions, if one be perfectly reasonable, the other can't be perfectly right.
Oliver Goldsmith
#73. Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, Shoulder'd his crutch, and shew'd how fields were won.
Oliver Goldsmith
#74. So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar, But bind him to his native mountains more.
Oliver Goldsmith
#75. The folly of others is ever most ridiculous to those who are themselves most foolish.
Oliver Goldsmith
#76. Titles and mottoes to books are like escutcheons and dignities in the hands of a king. The wise sometimes condescend to accept of them; but none but a fool would imagine them of any real importance. We ought to depend upon intrinsic merit, and not the slender helps of the title.
Oliver Goldsmith
#77. Indeed, Constance, you amaze me. Such a girl as you want jewels! It will be time enough for jewels, my dear, twenty years hence, when your beauty begins to want repairs.
Oliver Goldsmith
#78. The wisdom of the ignorant somewhat resembles the instinct of animals; it is diffused in but a very narrow sphere, but within the circle it acts with vigor, uniformity, and success.
Oliver Goldsmith
#79. The wretch condemn'd with life to part,
Still, still on hope relies;
And every pang that rends the heart
Bids expectation rise.
Oliver Goldsmith
#81. Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first best country ever is at home.
Oliver Goldsmith
#82. As boys should be educated with temperance, so the first greatest lesson that should be taught them is to admire frugality. It is by the exercise of this virtue alone they can ever expect to be useful members of society.
Oliver Goldsmith
#83. Every acknowledgment of gratitude is a circumstance of humiliation; and some are found to submit to frequent mortifications of this kind, proclaiming what obligations they owe, merely because they think it in some measure cancels the debt.
Oliver Goldsmith
#84. Age, that lessens the enjoyment of life, increases our desire of living
Oliver Goldsmith
#86. The bounds of a man's knowledge are easily concealed, if he has but prudence.
Oliver Goldsmith
#87. There is nothing magnanimous in bearing misfortunes with fortitude, when the whole world is looking on ... He who, without friends to encourage or even without hope to alleviate his misfortunes, can behave with tranquility and indifference, is truly great.
Oliver Goldsmith
#88. Wisdom makes a slow defense against trouble, though a sure one in the end.
Oliver Goldsmith
#89. The genteel thing is the genteel thing any time, if as be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.
Oliver Goldsmith
#90. To what fortuitous occurrence do we not owe every pleasure and convenience of our lives.
Oliver Goldsmith
#91. O friendship! thou fond soother of the human breast, to thee we fly in every calamity; to thee the wretched seek for succor; on thee the care-tired son of misery fondly relies; from thy kind assistance the unfortunate always hopes relief, and may be sure of
disappointment.
Oliver Goldsmith
#93. It has been well observed that few are better qualified to give others advice than those who have taken the least of it themselves.
Oliver Goldsmith
#96. Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began. Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And even his failings lean'd to Virtue's side.
Oliver Goldsmith
#97. A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
Oliver Goldsmith
#98. Politics resemble religion; attempting to divest either of ceremony is the most certain mode of bringing either into contempt.
Oliver Goldsmith
#99. Every want that stimulates the breast becomes a source of pleasure when redressed.
Oliver Goldsmith
#100. Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore.
Oliver Goldsmith
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