Oliver Goldsmith Quotes
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This is that eloquence the ancients represented as lightning, bearing down every opposer; this the power which has turned whole assemblies into astonishment, admiration and awe- - that is described by the torrent, the flame, and every other instance of irresistible impetuosity.
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O Memory! thou fond deceiver.
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Turn, gentle Hermit of the Dale,And guide my lonely wayTo where yon taper cheers the valeWith hospitable ray.
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You may all go to pot.
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The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.
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Is it that Nature, attentive to the preservation of mankind, increases our wishes to live, while she lessens our enjoyments, and as she robs the senses of every pleasure, equips imag-ination in the spoil?
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Nothing is so contemptible as that affectation of wisdom, which some display, by universal incredulity.
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For just experience tells; in every soil,That those that think must govern those that toil.
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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?
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Handsome is that handsome does.
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In my time, the follies of the town crept slowly among us, but now they travel faster than a stagecoach.
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Careless their merits or their faults to scan,His pity gave ere charity began.Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,And e'en his failings leaned to Virtue's side.
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The canvas glow'd beyond ev'n Nature warm,The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form.
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By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd;The sports of children satisfy the child.
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The land of scholars and the nurse of arms.
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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.
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Good people all, with one acord,Lament for Madame Blaize,Who never wanted a good word —From those who spoke her praise.
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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!
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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.
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Silence gives consent.
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Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view.
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The more various our artificial necessities, the wider is our circle of pleasure; for all pleasure consists in obviating necessities as they rise; luxury, therefore, as it increases our wants, increases our capacity for happiness
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Let us draw upon Content for the deficiencies of fortune.
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The jests of the rich are ever successful.