Best Quotes by Oliver Goldsmith (Top 10)
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Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs.
Oliver Goldsmith
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I love everything that's old, - old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.
Oliver Goldsmith
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People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.
Oliver Goldsmith
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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.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same.
Oliver Goldsmith
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You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Ridicule has always been the enemy of enthusiasm, and the only worthy opponent to ridicule is success.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.
Oliver Goldsmith
More Oliver Goldsmith Quotes
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Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Tenderness is a virtue.
Oliver Goldsmith
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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.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law.
Oliver Goldsmith
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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
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Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Surely the best way to meet the enemy is head on in the field and not wait till they plunder our very homes.
Oliver Goldsmith
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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
Oliver Goldsmith
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In all the silent manliness of grief.
Oliver Goldsmith
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I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Hope, like the gleaming taper's light,
Adorns and cheers our way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.
Oliver Goldsmith
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The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Silence is become his mother tongue.
Oliver Goldsmith
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All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, praised a little, and appreciated a little.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Aromatic plants bestow no spicy fragrance while they grow; but crush'd or trodden to the ground, diffuse their balmy sweets around.
Oliver Goldsmith
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On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 'Twas only when he was off, he was acting.
Oliver Goldsmith
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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.
Oliver Goldsmith
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The mind is ever ingenious in making its own distress.
Oliver Goldsmith
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If one wishes to become rich they must appear rich.
Oliver Goldsmith
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A book may be very amusing with numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity.
Oliver Goldsmith
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The nakedness of the indigent world may be clothed from the trimmings of the vain.
Oliver Goldsmith
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The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.
Oliver Goldsmith
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In arguing one should meet serious pleading with humor, and humor with serious pleading.
Oliver Goldsmith
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This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey.
Oliver Goldsmith
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No one but a fool would measure their satisfaction by what the world thinks of it.
Oliver Goldsmith
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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
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The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravelled, fondly turns to thee;
Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, His first best country ever is at home.
Oliver Goldsmith
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O Luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree!
Oliver Goldsmith
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A modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Life at the greatest and best is but a froward child, that must be humored and coaxed a little till it falls asleep, and then all the care is over.
Oliver Goldsmith
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I hate the French because they are all slaves and wear wooden shoes.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt; It 's like sending them ruffles when wanting a shirt.
Oliver Goldsmith
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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
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Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay. Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,- A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Be not affronted at a joke. If one throw salt at thee, thou wilt receive no harm, unless thou art raw.
Oliver Goldsmith
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The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.
Oliver Goldsmith
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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
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Fortune is ever seen accompanying industry.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails, And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, I see the lords of humankind pass by.
Oliver Goldsmith
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But in his duty prompt at every call,
He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all.
Oliver Goldsmith
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His conduct still right with his argument wrong.
Oliver Goldsmith
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It seemed to me pretty plain, that they had more of love than matrimony in them.
Oliver Goldsmith
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The very pink of perfection.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace the day's disasters in his morning face.
Oliver Goldsmith
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He watched and wept and prayed and felt for all
Oliver Goldsmith
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And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, that one small head could carry all he knew.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe, That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Wisdom makes a slow defense against trouble, though a sure one in the end.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long.
Oliver Goldsmith
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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
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Like the bee, we should make our industry our amusement.
Oliver Goldsmith
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And the weak soul, within itself unbless'd, Leans for all pleasure on another's breast.
Oliver Goldsmith
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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
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For just experience tells, in every soil, That those that think must govern those that toil.
Oliver Goldsmith
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The man recovered of the bite, The dog it was that died.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Of all kinds of ambition, that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest
Oliver Goldsmith
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If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.
Oliver Goldsmith
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To make a fine gentleman, several trades are required, but chiefly a barber.
Oliver Goldsmith
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The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.
Oliver Goldsmith
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A traveler of taste will notice that the wise are polite all over the world, but the fool only at home.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
Oliver Goldsmith
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A night-cap deck'd his brows instead of bay,- A cap by night, a stocking all the day.
Oliver Goldsmith
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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?
Oliver Goldsmith