Oliver goldsmith quotes

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

The little mind who loves itself, will wr'te and think with the vulgar; but the great mind will be bravely eccentric, and scorn the beaten road, from universal benevolence.

Crimes generally punish themselves.

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

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.

Ridicule has even been the most powerful enemy of enthusiasm, and properly the only antagonist that can be opposed to it with success.

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

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

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

True generosity is a duty as indispensably necessary as those imposed upon us by the law. It is a rule imposed upon us by reason, which should be the sovereign law of a rational being.

A boy will learn more true wisdom in a public school in a year than by a private education in five. It is not from masters, but from their equals, that youth learn a knowledge of the world.

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 volume of Nature is the book of knowledge.

As ten millions of circles can never make a square, so the united voice of myriads cannot lend the smallest foundation to falsehood.

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.

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

There is nothing magnanimous in bearing misfortunes with fortitude, when the whole world is looking on.... He who, without friends to encourage or even without hope to alleviate his misfortunes, can behave with tranquility and indifference, is truly great.

Politeness is the result of good sense and good nature.

It has been well observed that few are better qualified to give others advice than those who have taken the least of it themselves.

He who fights and runs away May live to fight another day.

A kind and gentle heart he had, To comfort friends and foes; The naked every day he clad When he put on his clothes.

The dog, to gain some private ends, Went mad, and bit the man.

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

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

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

When any one of our relations was found to be a person of a very bad character, a troublesome guest, or one we desired to get rid of, upon his leaving my house I ever took care to lend him a riding-coat, or a pair of boots, or sometimes a horse of small value, and I always had the satisfaction of finding he never came back to return them.

Taste is the power of relishing or rejecting whatever is offered for the entertainment of the imagination.

Whatever mitigates the woes, or increases the happiness of others, is a just criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it, is a criterion of iniquity.

True wisdom consists of tracing effects to their causes.

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

Those who think must govern those that toil.

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

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

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

The first blow is half the battle.

All is not gold that glitters, Pleasure seems sweet, but proves a glass of bitters

When a person has no need to borrow they find multitudes willing to lend.

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

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

You, that are going to be married, think things can never be done too fast: but we that are old, and know what we are about, must elope methodically, madam.

If the soul be happily disposed, every thing becomes capable of affording entertainment, and distress will almost want a name.

Our bounty, like a drop of water, disappears, when diffus'd too widely

I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.

True genius walks along a line, and, perhaps, our greatest pleasure is in seeing it so often near falling, without being ever actually down.

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

They say women and music should never be dated.

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

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.

The mind is ever ingenious in making its own distress.

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

An Englishman fears contempt more than death.

You will always find that those are most apt to boast of national merit, who have little or not merit of their own to depend on . . .

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

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

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

As boys should be educated with temperance, so the first greatest lesson that should be taught them is to admire frugality. It is by the exercise of this virtue alone they can ever expect to be useful members of society.

She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice, and trains up the other to virtue, is a much greater character than the ladies described in romance, whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their quiver or their eyes.

I have seen her and sister cry over a book for an hour together, and they said, they liked the book the better the more it made them cry.

Every acknowledgment of gratitude is a circumstance of humiliation; and some are found to submit to frequent mortifications of this kind, proclaiming what obligations they owe, merely because they think it in some measure cancels the debt.

Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.

They please, are pleas'd, they give to get esteem Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.

What real good does an addition to a fortune already sufficient procure? Not any. Could the great man, by having his fortune increased, increase also his appetites, then precedence might be attended with real amusement.

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

The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.

Take a dollar from a thousand and it will be a thousand no more.

Thus love is the most easy and agreeable, and gratitude the most humiliating, affection of the mind. We never reflect on the man we love without exulting in our choice, while he who has bound us to him by benefits alone rises to our ideas as a person to whom we have in some measure forfeited our freedom.

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

Absence, like death, sets a seal on the image of those we love: we cannot realize the intervening changes which time may have effected.

To be poor, and to seem poor, is a certain method never to rise.

Little things are great to little men.

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?

We sometimes had those little rubs which Providence sends to enhance the value of its favors.

Where wealth accumulates, men decay.

Silence is become his mother tongue.

Error is always talkative.

Tenderness is a virtue.

One should not quarrel with a dog without a reason sufficient to vindicate one through all the courts of morality.

Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine!

Philosophy ... should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of.

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

The soul may be compared to a field of battle, where the armies are ready every moment to encounter. Not a single vice but has a more powerful opponent, and not one virtue but may be overborne by a combination of vices.

Silence gives consent.

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

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

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

One man is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and the other with a wooden ladle.

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.

It has been remarked that almost every character which has excited either attention or pity has owed part of its success to merit, and part to a happy concurrence of circumstances in its favor. Had Caesar or Cromwell exchanged countries, the one might have been a sergeant and the other an exciseman.

He watched and wept and prayed and felt for all

And what is friendship but a name, A charm that lulls to sleep, A shade that follows wealth or fame, And leaves the wretch to weep?

I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too. No, sir, these, I protest you, are too hard for me.

It is not easy to recover an art when once lost.

Fortune is ever seen accompanying industry.

In all the silent manliness of grief.

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

If we do not find happiness in the present moment, in what shall we find it?

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

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.

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

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

We seldom speak of the virtue which we have, but much oftener of that which we lack.

Nobody with me at sea but myself.

To a philosopher no circumstance, however trifling, is too minute.

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

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

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.

What is genius or courage without a heart?

The premises being thus settled, I proceed to observe that the concatenation of self-existence, proceeding in a reciprocal duplicate ratio, naturally produces a problematical dialogism, which in some measure proves that the essence of spirituality may be referred to the second predicable.

Prudery is ignorance.

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

If one wishes to become rich they must appear rich.

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.

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 mind too vigorous and active, serves only to consume the body to which it is joined.

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?

We are all sure of two things, at least; we shall suffer and we shall all die.

In two opposite opinions, if one be perfectly reasonable, the other can't be perfectly right.

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

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

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

Philosophy can add to our happiness in no other manner but by diminishing our misery; it should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of. Happy were we all born philosophers; all born with a talent of thus dissipating our own cares by spreading them upon all mankind.

The greatest object in the universe, says a certain philosopher, is a good man struggling with adversity; yet there is still a greater, which is the good man who comes to relieve it.

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

Wealth accumulates, and men decay.

Measures, not men, have always been my mark.