Oliver Goldsmith Quotes
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To me more dear, congenial to my heart,One native charm, than all the gloss of art.
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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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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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The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.
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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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Silence gives consent.
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Let us draw upon Content for the deficiencies of fortune.
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O Memory! thou fond deceiver.
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Nothing is so contemptible as that affectation of wisdom, which some display, by universal incredulity.
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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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Who mix'd reason with pleasure, and wisdom with mirth:If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt.
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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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Handsome is that handsome does.
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Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,Shoulder'd his crutch, and shew'd how fields were won.
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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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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.
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Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view.
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The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor,The varnished clock that clicked behind the door;The chest contrived a double debt to pay,A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.
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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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Our Garrick's a salad; for in him we seeOil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree!
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For just experience tells; in every soil,That those that think must govern those that toil.
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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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Measures, not men, have always been my mark.
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How happy he who crowns in shades like these,A youth of labour with an age of ease.