Oliver Goldsmith Quotes
Oliver Goldsmith Quotes
- 1
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 | top
- 2
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 | top
- 3
All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, praised a little, and appreciated a little.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 4
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.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 5
Be not affronted at a joke. If one throw salt at thee, thou wilt receive no harm, unless thou art raw.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 6
Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 7
Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 8
Could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 9
Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 10
Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 11
Girls like to be played with, and rumpled a little too, sometimes.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 12
Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 13
Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 14
I chose my wife as she did her wedding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 15
I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 16
I love everything that's old, - old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 17
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.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 18
If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 19
Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 20
Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 21
Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 22
Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 23
Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 24
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 'Twas only when he was off, he was acting.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 25
Our greatest glory consists not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 26
Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 27
People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 28
People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 29
Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 30
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!
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 31
Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 32
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 | top
- 33
Tenderness is a virtue.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 34
The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 35
The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 36
The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 37
The jests of the rich are ever successful.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 38
There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 39
They say women and music should never be dated.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 40
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 | top
- 41
Where wealth accumulates, men decay.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 42
With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 43
Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
- 44
You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.
Oliver Goldsmith | top
