Oliver Goldsmith Quotes
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Tenderness is a virtue.
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Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.
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Pity, though it may often relieve, is but, at best, a short-lived passion, and seldom affords distress more than transitory assistance; with some it scarce lasts from the first impulse till the hand can be put into the pocket.
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If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.
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You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.
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Baw! Damme, but I'll fight you both, one after the other!With baskets.
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Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
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We modest Gentlemen don't want for much success among the women.
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What if in Scotland's wilds we viel'd our head, Where tempests whistle round the sordid bed; Where the rug's two-fold use we might display, By night a blanket, and a plaid by day.
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On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 'Twas only when he was off, he was acting.
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Could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet.
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I love everything that's old, - old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.
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I can't say whether we had more wit among us now than usual, but I am certain we had more laughing, which answered the end as well.
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A nightcap decked his brows instead of bay,A cap by night — a stocking all the day!
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The man recovered of the bite,The dog it was that died.
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So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roarBut bind him to his native mountains more.
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Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt;It's like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt.
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Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long.
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There are but few talents requisite to become a popular preacher; for the people are easily pleased if they perceive any endeavors in the orator to please them. The meanest qualifications will work this effect if the preacher sincerely sets about it.
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Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame.Their level life is but a mouldering fire,Unquenched by want, unfanned by strong desire.
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For he who fights and runs awayMay live to fight another day;But he who is in battle slainCan never rise and fight again.
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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.
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He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack,For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.
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As aromatic plants bestowNo spicy fragrance while they grow;But crush'd or trodden to the ground,Diffuse their balmy sweets around.