Oliver Goldsmith Quotes - Page 3

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• People seek within a short span of life to satisfy a thousand desires, each of which is insatiable.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Inspirational, Life, People

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  Happiness, Individuality, Woe

  8 Copy quote

• Hope, like the gleaming taper's light,
  Adorns and cheers our way;
  And still, as darker grows the night,
  Emits a brighter ray.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Inspirational, Hope, Cheer

  Oliver Goldsmith (1854). “The works of Oliver Goldsmith. 1: Poetical works; Dramas; The vicar of Wakefield”, p.70

  19 Copy quote

• As boys should be educated with temperance, so the first greatest lesson that should be taught them is to admire frugality. It is by the exercise of this virtue alone they can ever expect to be useful members of society.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Exercise, Boys, Lessons

  Oliver Goldsmith (1854). “The Works of Oliver Goldsmith: The bee. Essays. Unacknowledged essays. Prefaces, introductions, etc”, p.171

  12 Copy quote

• Aromatic plants bestow no spicy fragrance while they grow; but crush'd or trodden to the ground, diffuse their balmy sweets around.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Crush, Sweet, Adversity

  Oliver Goldsmith (1849). “The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith: With an Account of His Life and Writings : Stereotyped from the Paris Edition : Complete in One Volume”, p.221

  15 Copy quote

• Those who think must govern those that toil.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Thinking, Toil

  Oliver Goldsmith (1818). “The poems and plays of Oliver Goldsmith”, p.16

  13 Copy quote

• 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

  Friendship, Mind, Sorrow

  Oliver Goldsmith (1868). “The vicar of Wakefield, poems, and essays”, p.258

  16 Copy quote

• In all the silent manliness of grief.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Grief, Silence, Silent

  'The Deserted Village' (1770) l. 384

  22 Copy quote

• The fortunate circumstances of our lives are generally found, at last, to be of our own producing.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Lasts, Found, Circumstances

  Oliver Goldsmith (1837). “The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, M.B.: To which is Prefixed Some Account of His Life and Writings”, p.5

  27 Copy quote

• The ingratitude of the world can never deprive us of the conscious happiness of having acted with humanity ourselves.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Humanity, World, Conscious

  Oliver Goldsmith, David Masson (1869). “The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith”, p.623

  27 Copy quote

• Tenderness is a virtue.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Virtue, Tenderness

  "The Good-Natur'd Man". Play by Oliver Goldsmith, 1768.

  29 Copy quote

• Silence is become his mother tongue.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Mother, Silence, Tongue

  'The Good-Natured Man' (1768) act 2

  17 Copy quote

• A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is a vagabond.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Country, Travel, Home

  Oliver Goldsmith (1809). “The Citizen of the World; Or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher: Residing in London, to His Friends in the Country”, p.24

  60 Copy quote

• The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Funny, Humor, Law

  Oliver Goldsmith (1794). “The Citizen of the World Or Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, Residing in London, to His Friend in the East”, p.33

  10 Copy quote

• Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Hope, Bait, Hook

  25 Copy quote

• Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Champion, Absurdity

  15 Copy quote

• Little things are great to little men.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Men, Littles, Little Things

  "The traveller. Or, a prospect of society". Poem by Oliver Goldsmith, 1764.

  33 Copy quote

• 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

  Inspirational, Art, Integrity

  "The Vicar of Wakefield".

  21 Copy quote

• I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Anniversary, Wedding, Wife

  11 Copy quote

• 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.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Gratitude, Love Is, Men

  Oliver Goldsmith (1852). “The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith: With an Account of His Life and Writings”, p.330

  9 Copy quote

• If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Whales, Littles, Fishes

  Oliver Goldsmith (1862). “Poetical Works”, p.80

  21 Copy quote

• One man is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and the other with a wooden ladle.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Men, Mouths, Spoons

  10 Copy quote

• The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Use It Or Lose It, Speech, Want

  'Essays' 5 'The Use of Language'

  19 Copy quote

• Prudery is ignorance.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Ignorance

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Law, Generosity, Sovereign

  Oliver Goldsmith (1854). “The works of Oliver Goldsmith, ed. by P. Cunningham”, p.165

  8 Copy quote

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