Oliver Goldsmith Quotes
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Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
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How happy he who crowns in shades like these,A youth of labour with an age of ease.
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Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
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The land of scholars and the nurse of arms.
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The king himself has followed herWhen she has walk'd before.
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Alike all ages. Dames of ancient daysHave led their children through the mirthful maze,And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore,Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore.
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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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Vain, very vain, my weary search to findThat bliss which only centers in the mind.
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Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train,To traverse climes beyond the western main;Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,And Niagara stuns with thundering sound.
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The very pink of perfection.
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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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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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And, as a bird each fond endearment triesTo tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.
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A kind and gentle heart he had,To comfort friends and foes;The naked every day he cladWhen he put on his clothes.
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The polite of every country seem to have but one character. A gentleman of Sweden differs but little, except in trifles, from one of any other country. It is among the vulgar we are to find those distinctions which characterize a people.
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A man he was to all the country dear,And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
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The ingratitude of the world can never deprive us of the conscious happiness of having acted with humanity ourselves.
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Who peppered the highest was surest to please.
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No flocks that range the valley freeTo slaughter I condemn;Taught by that Power that pities me,I learn to pity them:But from the mountain’s grassy sideA guiltless feast I bring;A scrip with herbs and fruits supplied,And water from the spring.
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Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.
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And in that town a dog was found,As many dogs there be,Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,And curs of low degree.
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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 youth who follows his appetites too soon seizes the cup, before it has received its best ingredients, and by anticipating his pleasures, robs the remaining parts of life of their share, so that his eagerness only produces manhood of imbecility and an age of pain.
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I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too.