Oliver Goldsmith Quotes
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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 jests of the rich are ever successful.
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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 land of scholars and the nurse of arms.
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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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Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
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Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
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The king himself has followed herWhen she has walk'd before.
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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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The very pink of perfection.
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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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Vain, very vain, my weary search to findThat bliss which only centers in the mind.
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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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Who peppered the highest was surest to please.
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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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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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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.
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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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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 ingratitude of the world can never deprive us of the conscious happiness of having acted with humanity ourselves.
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And what is friendship but a name,A charm that lulls to sleep,A shade that follows wealth or fame,And leaves the wretch to weep?
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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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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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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.