Oliver Goldsmith Quotes
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A flattering painter, who made it his careTo draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
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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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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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You will always find that those are most apt to boast of national merit, who have little or not merit of their own to depend on . . .
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Were I to be angry at men being fools, I could here find ample room for declamation; but, alas! I have been a fool myself; and why should I be angry with them for being something so natural to every child of humanity?
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I learn several great truths; as that it is impossible to see into the ways of futurity, that punishment always attends the villain, that love is the fond soother of the human breast.
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I can't say whether we had more wit among us now than usual, but I am certain we had more laughing, which answered the end as well.
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She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice, and trains up the other to virtue, is a much greater character than the ladies described in romance, whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their quiver or their eyes.
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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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The world is like a vast sea: mankind like a vessel sailing on its tempestuous bosom. ... [T]he sciences serve us for oars.
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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.
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As for murmurs, mother, we grumble a little now and then, to be sure; but there's no love lost between us.
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Whatever be the motives which induce men to write,--whether avarice or fame,--the country becomes more wise and happy in which they most serve for instructors.
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Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs.
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The wisdom of the ignorant somewhat resembles the instinct of animals; it is diffused in but a very narrow sphere, but within the circle it acts with vigor, uniformity, and success.
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I fancy the character of a poet is in every country the same,--fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future; his conversation that of a man of sense, his actions those of a fool.
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Whenever you see a gaming table be sure to know fortune is not there. Rather she is always in the company of industry.
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Life has been compared to a race, but the allusion improves by observing, that the most swift are usually the least manageable and the most likely to stray from the course. Great abilities have always been less serviceable to the possessors than moderate ones.
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I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.
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Philosophy can add to our happiness in no other manner but by diminishing our misery; it should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of. Happy were we all born philosophers; all born with a talent of thus dissipating our own cares by spreading them upon all mankind.
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Life at the greatest and best is but a froward child, that must be humored and coaxed a little till it falls asleep, and then all the care is over.
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Like the tiger, that seldom desists from pursuing man after having once preyed upon human flesh, the reader who has once gratified his appetite with calumny makes ever after the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputations!
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The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I read a book over I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one.
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Whichever way we look the prospect is disagreeable. Behind, we have left pleasures we shall never enjoy, and therefore regret; and before, we see pleasures which we languish to possess, and are consequently uneasy till we possess them.