Oliver Goldsmith Quotes


"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
(Related: Anticipation, Calamity, Future, Lies, Past, Present, Regret)

"Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Strength, Conscience, Faults, Justice)

"Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Country, Politeness)

"Be not affronted at a joke. If one throw salt at thee, thou wilt receive no harm, unless thou art raw."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Art, Harm)

"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
(Related: Home, Blind, Country, Curiosity, Man)

"All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, praised a little, and appreciated a little."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Wife, Husband)

"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
(Related: Knowledge, Desire, Writers)

"If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Talk)

"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
(Related: Beauty, Happiness, Nature, Romance, Colors, Taste)

"Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Friendship, Pity)

"People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: People)

"Our greatest glory consists not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Time, Glory)

"On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 'Twas only when he was off, he was acting."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Acting)

"Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Modesty)

"Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Man)

"Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Life, Journey)

"Could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Man)

"Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Men, Law, Poor)

"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
(Related: Family, Man, Opinion, Population, Service)

"Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Success, Time)

"Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Genius, Grammar, Learning, Liquor, Nonsense)

"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
(Related: Enemy)

"I love everything that's old, - old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Love, Books, Friends, Manners, Old, Wine)

"Every absurdity has a champion to defend it."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Absurdity)

"Girls like to be played with, and rumpled a little too, sometimes."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Girls)

"Honour sinks where commerce long prevails."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Commerce)

"Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Hope)

"I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Wedding, Wife)

"The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Company, End, First, Fools, May, Melancholy, Smile)

"The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself."
- Oliver Goldsmith
"The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition."
- Oliver Goldsmith
"The jests of the rich are ever successful."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Successful)

"There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Virtue, Excellence, Faults, Vice)

"They say women and music should never be dated."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Music, Women)

"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
(Related: Art, Men, Charm, Folly, Guilt, Melancholy, Woman)

"Where wealth accumulates, men decay."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Men, Wealth)

"With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Humility)

"Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Want, World)

"You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Life)

"Tenderness is a virtue."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Virtue, Tenderness)