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Whatever the skill of any country may be in the sciences, it is from its excellence in polite learning alone that it must expect a character from posterity.
Oliver Goldsmith -
I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.
Oliver Goldsmith
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The soul may be compared to a field of battle, where the armies are ready every moment to encounter. Not a single vice but has a more powerful opponent, and not one virtue but may be overborne by a combination of vices.
Oliver Goldsmith -
Why was this heart of mine formed with so much sensibility! Or why not my fortune adapted to its impulses! Tenderness without a capacity of relieving only makes the man who feels it more wretched than the object which sues for assistance.
Oliver Goldsmith -
There is probably no country so barbarous that would not disclose all it knew, if it received equivalent information; and I am apt to think that a person who was ready to give more knowledge than he received would be welcome wherever he came.
Oliver Goldsmith -
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.
Oliver Goldsmith -
Quality and title have such allurements that hundreds are ready to give up all their own importance, to cringe, to flatter, to look little, and to pall every pleasure in constraint, merely to be among the great, though without the least hopes of improving their understanding or sharing their generosity. They might be happier among their equals.
Oliver Goldsmith -
The way to acquire lasting esteem is not by the fewness of a writer's faults, but the greatness of his beauties, and our noblest works are generally most replete with both.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Fine declamation does not consist in flowery periods, delicate allusions of musical cadences, but in a plain, open, loose style, where the periods are long and obvious, where the same thought is often exhibited in several points of view.
Oliver Goldsmith -
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.
Oliver Goldsmith -
It is impossible to combat enthusiasm with reason; for though it makes a show of resistance, it soon eludes the pressure, refers you to distinctions not to be understood, and feelings which it cannot explain. A man who would endeavor to fix an enthusiast by argument might as well attempt to spread quicksilver with his finger.
Oliver Goldsmith -
For the first time, the best may err, art may persuade, and novelty spread out its charms. The first fault is the child of simplicity; but every other the offspring of guilt.
Oliver Goldsmith -
Philosophy ... should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of.
Oliver Goldsmith -
Friendship is made up of esteem and pleasure; pity is composed of sorrow and contempt: the mind may for some time fluctuate between them, but it can never entertain both at once.
Oliver Goldsmith
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A traveler of taste will notice that the wise are polite all over the world, but the fool only at home.
Oliver Goldsmith -
Whenever you see a gaming table be sure to know fortune is not there. Rather she is always in the company of industry.
Oliver Goldsmith -
Ridicule has even been the most powerful enemy of enthusiasm, and properly the only antagonist that can be opposed to it with success.
Oliver Goldsmith -
Titles and mottoes to books are like escutcheons and dignities in the hands of a king. The wise sometimes condescend to accept of them; but none but a fool would imagine them of any real importance. We ought to depend upon intrinsic merit, and not the slender helps of the title.
Oliver Goldsmith -
Ridicule has always been the enemy of enthusiasm, and the only worthy opponent to ridicule is success.
Oliver Goldsmith -
Fear guides more to their duty than gratitude; for one man who is virtuous from the love of virtue, from the obligation he thinks he lies under to the Giver of all, there are ten thousand who are good only from their apprehension of punishment.
Oliver Goldsmith
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Our pleasures are short, and can only charm at intervals; love is a method of protraction our greatest pleasure.
Oliver Goldsmith -
To aim at excellence, our reputation, and friends, and all must be ventured; to aim at the average we run no risk and provide little service.
Oliver Goldsmith -
Absence, like death, sets a seal on the image of those we love: we cannot realize the intervening changes which time may have effected.
Oliver Goldsmith -
Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity; it is that which gives value to every character. The ignorant peasant, without fault, is greater than the philosopher with many; for what is genius or courage without a heart?
Oliver Goldsmith