All Quotes by Oliver Goldsmith
“In all the silent manliness of grief.”
“O Luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree!”
“Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe,That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so.”
“In my time, the follies of the town crept slowly among us, but now they travel faster than a stagecoach.”
“I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.”
“The very pink of perfection.”
“The genteel thing is the genteel thing any time, if as be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.”
“Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain,Gives genus a better discerning.”
“I'll be with you in the squeezing of a lemon.”
“A modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation.”
“The first blow is half the battle.”
“We are the boysWhere the thundering cannons roar.”
“They liked the book the better the more it made them cry.”
“Travellers, George, must pay in all places: the only difference is, that in good inns, you pay dearly for your luxuries, and in bad inns you are fleeced and starved.”
“Oh sir! I must not tell my age. They say women and music should never be dated.”
“Baw! Damme, but I'll fight you both, one after the other!With baskets.”
“We modest Gentlemen don't want for much success among the women.”
“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.”
“Our Garrick's a salad; for in him we seeOil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree!”
“Who mix'd reason with pleasure, and wisdom with mirth:If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt.”
“His conduct still right, with his argument wrong.”
“All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, praised a little, and appreciated a little.”
“A flattering painter, who made it his careTo draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.”
“Here lies David Garrick, describe me, who can,An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man.”
“As a wit, if not first, in the very first line.”
“On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;'Twas only that when he was off he was acting.”
“He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack,For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.”
“Who peppered the highest was surest to please.”
“When he talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff,He shifted his trumpet and only took snuff.”
“The best-humour'd man, with the worst-humour'd Muse.”
“Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other.”
“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.”
“I love everything that's old, - old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.”
“Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.”
“A nightcap decked his brows instead of bay,A cap by night — a stocking all the day!”
“Men may be very learned, and yet very miserable; it is easy to be a deep geometrician, or a sublime astronomer, but very difficult to be a good man. I esteem, therefore, the traveller who instructs the heart, but despise him who only indulges the imagination. 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 only a vagabond.”
“Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt;It's like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt.”
“There is no arguing with Johnson: for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it.”
“[To Mr. Johnson] If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.”
“You may all go to pot.”
“For he who fights and runs awayCan never rise and fight again.”
“One writer, for instance, excels at a plan or a title page, another works away at the body of the book, and a third is a dab at an index.”
“The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.”
“As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent.”
“Good people all, with one acord,From those who spoke her praise.”
“As aromatic plants bestowDiffuse their balmy sweets around.”
“That strain once more; it bids remembrance rise.”
“O Memory! thou fond deceiver.”
“To the last moment of his breathBids expectation rise.”
“Hope, like the gleaming taper's light,Emits a brighter ray.”
“Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,Or by the lazy Scheldt, or wandering Po.”
“Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see,And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.”
“And learn the luxury of doing good.”
“Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view.”
“These little things are great to little man.”
“Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine!”
“Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,His first, best country ever is, at home.”
“Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails,And honor sinks where commerce long prevails.”
“Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.”
“The canvas glow'd beyond ev'n Nature warm,The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form.”
“By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd;The sports of children satisfy the child.”
“But winter lingering chills the lap of May.”
“Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes.”
“So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roarBut bind him to his native mountains more.”
“Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,Unquenched by want, unfanned by strong desire.”
“Alike all ages. Dames of ancient daysHas frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore.”
“They please, are pleased, they give to get esteem,Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.”
“Where wealth accumulates, men decay.”
“To men of other minds my fancy flies,Where the broad ocean leans against the land.”
“Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,I see the lords of humankind pass by.”
“Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law.”
“The land of scholars and the nurse of arms.”
“For just experience tells; in every soil,That those that think must govern those that toil.”
“Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.”
“Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train,And Niagara stuns with thundering sound.”
“Vain, very vain, my weary search to findThat bliss which only centers in the mind.”
“Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel.”
“A book may be very amusing with numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity.”
“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.”
“I...chose a wife, as she did her wedding gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well.”
“We sometimes had those little rubs which Providence sends to enhance the value of its favors.”
“Handsome is that handsome does.”
“Let us draw upon Content for the deficiencies of fortune.”
“That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the sentinel.”
“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.”
“I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too.”
“Turn, gentle Hermit of the Dale,With hospitable ray.”
“No flocks that range the valley freeAnd water from the spring.”
“Man wants but little here below,Nor wants that little long.”
“And what is friendship but a name,And leaves the wretch to weep?”
“The sigh that rends thy constant heartShall break thy Edwin's too.”
“By the living jingo, she was all of a muck of sweat.”
“They would talk of nothing but high life, and high-lived company, with other fashionable topics, such as pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses.”
“It has been a thousand times observed, and I must observe it once more, that the hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowned with fruition.”
“Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.”
“It seemed to be pretty plain, that they had more of love than matrimony in them.”
“A kind and gentle heart he had,When he put on his clothes.”
“And in that town a dog was found,And curs of low degree.”
“The dog, to gain some private ends,Went mad, and bit the man.”
“The man recovered of the bite,The dog it was that died.”
“To what happy accident is it that we owe so unexpected a visit?”
“To what fortuitous occurrence do we not owe every pleasure and convenience of our lives.”
“You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.”
“When lovely woman stoops to folly,What art can wash her guilt away?”
“The only art her guilt to cover,And wring his bosom, is — to die.”
“This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey.”
“He calls his extravagance, generosity; and his trusting everybody, universal benevolence.”
“All his faults are such that one loves him still the better for them.”
“Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.”
“Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.”
“Measures, not men, have always been my mark.”
“Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain.”
“The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,For talking age and whispering lovers made.”
“The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,The matron's glance that would those looks reprove.”
“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,When once destroyed, can never be supplied.”
“His best companions, innocence and health;And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.”
“How happy he who crowns in shades like these,A youth of labour with an age of ease.”
“Bends to the grave with unperceived decay,His heaven commences ere the world be past.”
“Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.”
“The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.”
“The watchdog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.”
“A man he was to all the country dear,And passing rich with forty pounds a year.”
“Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,Shoulder'd his crutch, and shew'd how fields were won.”
“Careless their merits or their faults to scan,And e'en his failings leaned to Virtue's side.”
“And, as a bird each fond endearment triesAllured to brighter worlds, and led the way.”
“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.”
“Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.”
“Even children followed with endearing wile,And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile.”
“As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,Eternal sunshine settles on its head.”
“Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace'T was certain he could write and cipher too.”
“In arguing too, the parson owned his skill,That one small head could carry all he knew.”
“Where village statesmen talked with looks profound,And news much older than their ale went round.”
“The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor,A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.”
“The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose.”
“To me more dear, congenial to my heart,One native charm, than all the gloss of art.”
“And, ev'n while fashion's brightest arts decoy,The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy.”
“Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.”
“Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.”