Top 348 Quotes & Sayings by Oliver Goldsmith - Page 2

Every acknowledgment of gratitude is a circumstance of humiliation; and some are found to submit to frequent mortifications of this kind, proclaiming what obligations they owe, merely because they think it in some measure cancels the debt.

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

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.

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

To make a fine gentleman, several trades are required, but chiefly a barber.

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

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

As ten millions of circles can never make a square, so the united voice of myriads cannot lend the smallest foundation to falsehood.

Prudery is ignorance.

In all the silent manliness of grief.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

True genius walks along a line, and, perhaps, our greatest pleasure is in seeing it so often near falling, without being ever actually down.

An Englishman fears contempt more than death.

Crimes generally punish themselves.

Error is always talkative.

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.

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

We are all sure of two things, at least; we shall suffer and we shall all die.

I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.

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.

The mind is ever ingenious in making its own distress.

A modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation.

You, that are going to be married, think things can never be done too fast: but we that are old, and know what we are about, must elope methodically, madam.

Logicians have but ill defined As rational the human mind; Reason, they say, belongs to man, But let them prove it if they can.

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

There is nothing magnanimous in bearing misfortunes with fortitude, when the whole world is looking on.... He who, without friends to encourage or even without hope to alleviate his misfortunes, can behave with tranquility and indifference, is truly great.

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

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

For just experience tells, in every soil, That those that think must govern those that toil.

We seldom speak of the virtue which we have, but much oftener of that which we lack.

Fortune is ever seen accompanying industry.

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.

Politeness is the result of good sense and good nature.

If one wishes to become rich they must appear rich.

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

What is genius or courage without a heart?

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

All is not gold that glitters, Pleasure seems sweet, but proves a glass of bitters

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

The premises being thus settled, I proceed to observe that the concatenation of self-existence, proceeding in a reciprocal duplicate ratio, naturally produces a problematical dialogism, which in some measure proves that the essence of spirituality may be referred to the second predicable.

A kind and gentle heart he had, To comfort friends and foes; The naked every day he clad When he put on his clothes.

Measures, not men, have always been my mark.

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.

I have seen her and sister cry over a book for an hour together, and they said, they liked the book the better the more it made them cry.

What real good does an addition to a fortune already sufficient procure? Not any. Could the great man, by having his fortune increased, increase also his appetites, then precedence might be attended with real amusement.

He who fights and runs away May live to fight another day.

And what is friendship but a name, A charm that lulls to sleep, A shade that follows wealth or fame, And leaves the wretch to weep?

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?

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

When a person has no need to borrow they find multitudes willing to lend.

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.

Our bounty, like a drop of water, disappears, when diffus'd too widely

The volume of Nature is the book of knowledge.

He watched and wept and prayed and felt for all

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