Oliver Goldsmith Quotes

Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other.

No one but a fool would measure their satisfaction by what the world thinks of it.

The greatest object in the universe, says a certain philosopher, is a good man struggling with adversity; yet there is still a greater, which is the good man who comes to relieve it.

It has been well observed that few are better qualified to give others advice than those who have taken the least of it themselves.

A boy will learn more true wisdom in a public school in a year than by a private education in five. It is not from masters, but from their equals, that youth learn a knowledge of the world.

In two opposite opinions, if one be perfectly reasonable, the other can't be perfectly right.

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.

Crimes generally punish themselves.

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.

The dog, to gain some private ends, Went mad, and bit the man.

True generosity is a duty as indispensably necessary as those imposed upon us by the law. It is a rule imposed upon us by reason, which should be the sovereign law of a rational being.

Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart untravelled, fondly turns to thee; Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain, And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.

To be poor, and to seem poor, is a certain method never to rise.

He watched and wept and prayed and felt for all

If the soul be happily disposed, every thing becomes capable of affording entertainment, and distress will almost want a name.

As for disappointing them I should not so much mind; but I can't abide to disappoint myself.

The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.

Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.

In arguing one should meet serious pleading with humor, and humor with serious pleading.

Ridicule has even been the most powerful enemy of enthusiasm, and properly the only antagonist that can be opposed to it with success.

They please, are pleas'd, they give to get esteem Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.

I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too. No, sir, these, I protest you, are too hard for me.

While selfishness joins hands with no one of the virtues, benevolence is allied to them all.

Taste is the power of relishing or rejecting whatever is offered for the entertainment of the imagination.

Mortifications are often more painful than real calamities.

Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.

Blest that abode, where want and pain repair, And every stranger finds a ready chair.

See me, how calm I am. Ay, people are generally calm at the misfortunes of others.

In all my wanderings round this world of care, In all my griefs-and God has given my share- I still had hopes my latest hours to crown, Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down.

Absence, like death, sets a seal on the image of those we love: we cannot realize the intervening changes which time may have effected.

They say women and music should never be dated.

To a philosopher no circumstance, however trifling, is too minute.

One should not quarrel with a dog without a reason sufficient to vindicate one through all the courts of morality.

The genteel thing is the genteel thing any time, if as be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.

Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, Or by the lazy Scheld or wandering Po.

How wide the limits stand Between a splendid and a happy land.

This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey.

There is a greatness in being generous, and there is only simple justice in satisfying creditors. Generosity is the part of the soul raised above the vulgar.

There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher.

Crime generally punishes itself.

A flattering painter, who made it his care To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.

Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.

Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity.

So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar, But bind him to his native mountains more.

To me more dear, congenial to my heart, One native charm, than all the gloss of art.

Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.

It seemed to me pretty plain, that they had more of love than matrimony in them.

Who mix'd reason with pleasure, and wisdom with mirth: If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt.

While Resignation gently slopes away, And all his prospects brightening to the last, His heaven commences ere the world be past.

He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle them back.