Oliver Goldsmith Quotes

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

Tenderness is a virtue.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.

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

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

In all the silent manliness of grief.

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

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

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.

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

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

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.

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

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

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

Silence is become his mother tongue.

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

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.

The mind is ever ingenious in making its own distress.

If one wishes to become rich they must appear rich.

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

The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.

The nakedness of the indigent world may be clothed from the trimmings of the vain.

This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey.

No one but a fool would measure their satisfaction by what the world thinks of it.

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.

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

In arguing one should meet serious pleading with humor, and humor with serious pleading.

O Luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree!

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.

A modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation.

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

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, that one small head could carry all he knew.

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?

A night-cap deck'd his brows instead of bay,- A cap by night, a stocking all the day.

Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.

Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, I see the lords of humankind pass by.

Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails, And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.

Fortune is ever seen accompanying industry.

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.

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

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

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.

The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.

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.

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

I hate the French because they are all slaves and wear wooden shoes.

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

A traveler of taste will notice that the wise are polite all over the world, but the fool only at home.

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

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.

Of all kinds of ambition, that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest

The man recovered of the bite, The dog it was that died.

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

Whenever you see a gaming table be sure to know fortune is not there. Rather she is always in the company of industry.

And the weak soul, within itself unbless'd, Leans for all pleasure on another's breast.

Like the bee, we should make our industry our amusement.

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.

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

Wisdom makes a slow defense against trouble, though a sure one in the end.

Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe, That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so.

He watched and wept and prayed and felt for all

Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace the day's disasters in his morning face.

The very pink of perfection.

It seemed to me pretty plain, that they had more of love than matrimony in them.

His conduct still right with his argument wrong.

But in his duty prompt at every call, He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all.