-
A flattering painter, who made it his careTo draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
Oliver Goldsmith -
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.
Oliver Goldsmith
-
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.
Oliver Goldsmith -
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 . . .
Oliver Goldsmith -
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.
Oliver Goldsmith -
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?
Oliver Goldsmith -
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.
Oliver Goldsmith -
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.
Oliver Goldsmith
-
The world is like a vast sea: mankind like a vessel sailing on its tempestuous bosom. ... [T]he sciences serve us for oars.
Oliver Goldsmith -
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.
Oliver Goldsmith -
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.
Oliver Goldsmith -
It has been remarked that almost every character which has excited either attention or pity has owed part of its success to merit, and part to a happy concurrence of circumstances in its favor. Had Caesar or Cromwell exchanged countries, the one might have been a sergeant and the other an exciseman.
Oliver Goldsmith -
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.
Oliver Goldsmith -
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.
Oliver Goldsmith
-
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.
Oliver Goldsmith -
As for murmurs, mother, we grumble a little now and then, to be sure; but there's no love lost between us.
Oliver Goldsmith -
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.
Oliver Goldsmith -
The volumes of antiquity, like medals, may very well serve to amuse the curious, but the works of the moderns, like the current coin of a kingdom, are much better for immediate use.
Oliver Goldsmith -
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!
Oliver Goldsmith -
Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs.
Oliver Goldsmith
-
Whatever mitigates the woes, or increases the happiness of others, is a just criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it, is a criterion of iniquity.
Oliver Goldsmith -
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.
Oliver Goldsmith -
There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher. Fontenelle says he would undertake to persuade the whole public of readers to believe that the sun was neither the cause of light or heat, if he could only get six philosophers on his side.
Oliver Goldsmith -
The person whose clothes are extremely fine I am too apt to consider as not being possessed of any superiority of fortune, but resembling those Indians who are found to wear all the gold they have in the world in a bob at the nose.
Oliver Goldsmith