Oliver Goldsmith Quotes

Blame where you must, be candid where you can, And be each critic the Good-natured Man.

To make a fine gentleman, several trades are required, but chiefly a barber.

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.

One writer, for instance, excels at a plan or a title page, another works away at the body of the book, and a third is a dab at an index.

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

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

Life has been compared to a race, but the allusion improves by observing, that the most swift are usually the least manageable and the most likely to stray from the course. Great abilities have always been less serviceable to the possessors than moderate ones.

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.

Ridicule has always been the enemy of enthusiasm, and the only worthy opponent to ridicule is success.

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

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

We may affirm of Mr. Buffon, that which has been said of the chemists of old; though he may have failed in attaining his principal aim, of establishing a theory, yet he has brought together such a multitude of facts relative to the history of the earth, and the nature of its fossil productions, that curiosity finds ample compensation, even while it feels the want of conviction.

As for murmurs, mother, we grumble a little now and then, to be sure; but there's no love lost between us.

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

Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.

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

Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies.

Wealth accumulates, and men decay.

Little things are great to little men.

Tenderness is a virtue.

Error is always talkative.

The ingratitude of the world can never deprive us of the conscious happiness of having acted with humanity ourselves.

The fortunate circumstances of our lives are generally found, at last, to be of our own producing.

Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.

In all the silent manliness of grief.

Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain.

Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity; it is that which gives value to every character. The ignorant peasant, without fault, is greater than the philosopher with many; for what is genius or courage without a heart?

Villainy, when detected, never gives up, but boldly adds impudence to imposture.

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

Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt; It 's like sending them ruffles when wanting a shirt.

The ambitious are forever followed by adulation for they receive the most pleasure from flattery.

Man little knows what calamities are beyond his patience to bear till he tries them; as in ascending the heights of ambition, which look bright from below, every step we rise shows us some new and gloomy prospect of hidden disappointment; so in our descent from the summits of pleasure, though the vale of misery below may appear, at first, dark and gloomy, yet the busy mind, still attentive to its own amusement, finds, as we descend, something to flatter and to please. Still as we approach, the darkest objects appear to brighten, and the mortal eye becomes adapted to its gloomy situation.

The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.

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

The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form.

Filial obedience is the first and greatest requisite of a state; by this we become good subjects to our emperors, capable of behaving with just subordination to our superiors, and grateful dependents on heaven; by this we become fonder of marriage, in order to be capable of exacting obedience from others in our turn; by this we become good magistrates, for early submission is the truest lesson to those who would learn to rule. By this the whole state may be said to resemble one family.

Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, And the puff a dunce, he mistook it for fame; Till his relish grown callous, almost to displease, Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please.

Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog And in that town a dog was found, As many dogs there be, Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, And curs of low degree.

Silence is become his mother tongue.

Aromatic plants bestow no spicy fragrance while they grow; but crush'd or trodden to the ground, diffuse their balmy sweets around.

Silence gives consent.

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.

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.

The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I read a book over I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one.

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

Processions, cavalcades, and all that fund of gay frippery, furnished out by tailors, barbers, and tire-women, mechanically influence the mind into veneration; an emperor in his nightcap would not meet with half the respect of an emperor with a crown.

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.

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?

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

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.