Oliver Goldsmith Quotes
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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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O friendship! thou fond soother of the human breast, to thee we fly in every calamity; to thee the wretched seek for succor; on thee the care-tired son of misery fondly relies; from thy kind assistance the unfortunate always hopes relief, and may be sure of--disappointment.
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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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The very pink of perfection.
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The only art her guilt to cover,To hide her shame from every eye,To give repentance to her lover,And wring his bosom, is — to die.
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The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,The matron's glance that would those looks reprove.
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The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose.
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Processions, cavalcades, and all that fund of gay frippery, furnished out by tailors, barbers, and tire-women, mechanically influence the mind into veneration; an emperor in his nightcap would not meet with half the respect of an emperor with a crown.
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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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Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see,My heart untraveled fondly turns to thee;Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain,And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.
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I have found by experience that they who have spent all their lives in cities contract not only an effeminacy of habit, but of thinking.
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They would talk of nothing but high life, and high-lived company, with other fashionable topics, such as pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses.
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Bends to the grave with unperceived decay,While resignation gently slopes the way;And, all his prospects brightening to the last,His heaven commences ere the world be past.
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This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey.
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A book may be very amusing with numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity.
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We sometimes had those little rubs which Providence sends to enhance the value of its favors.
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To what happy accident is it that we owe so unexpected a visit?
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If frugality were established in the state, and if our expenses were laid out to meet needs rather than superfluities of life, there might be fewer wants, and even fewer pleasures, but infinitely more happiness.
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The Europeans are themselves blind who describe fortune without sight. No first-rate beauty ever had finer eyes, or saw more clearly. They who have no other trade but seeking their fortune need never hope to find her; coquette-like, she flies from her close pursuers, and at last fixes on the plodding mechanic who stays at home and minds his business.
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Travellers, George, must pay in all places: the only difference is, that in good inns, you pay dearly for your luxuries, and in bad inns you are fleeced and starved.
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To the last moment of his breathOn hope the wretch relies;And e'en the pang preceding deathBids expectation rise.
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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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The genteel thing is the genteel thing any time, if as be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.
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When any one of our relations was found to be a person of a very bad character, a troublesome guest, or one we desired to get rid of, upon his leaving my house I ever took care to lend him a riding-coat, or a pair of boots, or sometimes a horse of small value, and I always had the satisfaction of finding he never came back to return them.