Oliver Goldsmith Quotations

Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.

I love everything that's old, - old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.

There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.

Romance and novel paint beauty in colors more charming than nature, and describe a happiness that humans never taste. How deceptive and destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss!

Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.

Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.

All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, praised a little, and appreciated a little.

Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.

A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is a vagabond.

When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy, what art can wash her guilt away?

The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.

Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.

Be not affronted at a joke. If one throw salt at thee, thou wilt receive no harm, unless thou art raw.

You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.

I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.

The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.

If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.

Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other.

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.

People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.

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.

Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law.

Surely the best way to meet the enemy is head on in the field and not wait till they plunder our very homes.

Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same.

Girls like to be played with and rumpled a little too sometimes.

Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.

Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.

They say women and music should never be dated.

The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.

Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.

Could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet.

With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.

I was ever of the opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single, and only talked of population.

As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent; whence must necessarily arise a desire of attaining knowledge with the greatest possible ease.

The jests of the rich are ever successful.

Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long.

On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 'Twas only when he was off, he was acting.

Life at the greatest and best is but a forward child, that must be humored and coaxed a little till it falls asleep, and then all the care is over.

O Memory, thou fond deceiver, Still importunate and vain, To former joys recurring ever, And turning all the past to pain

I am told he makes a very handsome corpse, and becomes his coffin prodigiously.

I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too.

He tried each art, reproved each dull delay./ Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.

He who seeks for applause only from without has all his happiness in another's keeping

There is no arguing with Johnson; for when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it

To feel your subject thoroughly and to speak without fear, are the only rules of eloquence

How wide the limits stand / Between a splendid and an happy land.

He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, for he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.

Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall

Our greatest glory consists not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.

Our Garrick's a salad; for in him we see, Oil, vinegar, sugar and saltiness agree

Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, / His first, best country ever is at home.

Logicians have but ill defined As rational the human mind. Logic, they say, belongs to man, But let them prove it if they can.

I was never much displeased with those harmless delusions that tend to make us more happy.

Where wealth and freedom reign; contentment fails, And honor sinks where commerce long prevails

Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, / And news much older than their ale went round.

Who can direct when all pretend to know?

We are the boys / That fear no noise / Where the thundering cannons roar.

Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe, / That foundst me poor at first, and keepst me so.

People seek within a short span of life to satisfy a thousand desires, each of which is insatiable.

Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit.

With other fashionable topics, such as pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses.

Those that think must govern those that toil.

Too fond of the right to pursue the expedient.

To begin with Ireland, the most western part of the continent, the natives are peculiarly remarkable for their gaiety and levity of their disposition ; the English, transplanted there, in time lose their serious melancholy air, and become gay and tho

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, / With blossomed furze unprofitably gay.

As I take my shoes from the shoemaker, and my coat from the tailor, so I take my religion from the priest

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it, for error is always talkative

Even children followed with endearing wile,/ And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile.

Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, / More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise. / His house was known to all the vagrant train, / He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain.

Is he like Burke, who winds into a subject like a serpent?

The virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarcely worth the sentinel

Pride in their port, defiance in their eye I see the Lords of human kind pass by.

People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after

The naked every day he clad, / When he put on his clothes.

A night-cap decked his brows instead of bay, / A cap by night - a stocking all the day!

As for disappointing them, I should not so much mind; but I can't abide to disappoint myself.

As a wit, if not first, in the very first line.

The weakest soul, within itself unblest, Leans for all pleasure on another's breast

The white-washed wall, the nicely sanded floor, / The varnished clock that clicked behind the door; / The chest contrived a double debt to pay, / A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.

A book may be amusing with numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity.

It's a damned long, boggy, dirty, dangerous way.

For he who fights and runs away May live to fight another day; But he who is in battle slain Can never rise and fight again

For he that fights and runs away, may live to fight another day, but he, who is in battle slain, can never rise and fight again.

For him light labor spread her wholesome store, Just gave what life required, but gave no more: His best companions, innocence and health; And his best riches, ignorance of wealth

For just experience tells, in every soil, That those who think must govern those who toil

That's a good girl. I find you are perfectly qualified for making converts, and so go help your mother to make the gooseberry-pie.

Still to ourselves in every place consigned, / Our own felicity we make or find.

The bashful virgin's side-long looks of love,/ The matron's glance that would those looks reprove.

Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.

The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose.

The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind, / And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.

The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms.

I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines; and, I believe, Dorothy, you'll own I have been pretty fond of an old wife.

I'm now no more than a mere lodger in my own house.

His conduct still right, with his argument wrong

By the living jingo, she was all of a muck of sweat.

But in his duty prompt at every call, he watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all.

Hope, like the gleaming taper's light, adorns and cheers our way; and still, as darker grows the night, emits a brighter ray.

Good people all, of every sort, / Give ear unto my song; / And if you do find it wondrous short, / It cannot hold you long.

How happy he who crowns in shades like these, / A youth of labour with an age of ease.