Best 314 quotes of Oliver Goldsmith on MyQuotes

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

One writer, for instance, excels at a plan or a title page, another works away at the body of the book, and a third is a dab at an index.

On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 'Twas only when he was off, he was acting.

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

Our chief comforts often produce our greatest anxieties, and the increase in our possessions is but an inlet to new disquietudes.

Our Garrick 's a salad; for in him we see Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree!

Our pleasures are short, and can only charm at intervals; love is a method of protraction our greatest pleasure.

Paltry affectation, strained allusions, and disgusting finery are easily attained by those who choose to wear them; they are but too frequently the badges of ignorance or of stupidity, whenever it would endeavor to please.

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

People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.

Persecution is a tribute the great must always pay for preeminence.

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.

Philosophy ... should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of.

Pity, though it may often relieve, is but, at best, a short-lived passion, and seldom affords distress more than transitory assistance; with some it scarce lasts from the first impulse till the hand can be put into the pocket.

Politics resemble religion; attempting to divest either of ceremony is the most certain mode of bringing either into contempt.

Popular glory is a perfect coquette; her lovers must toil, feel every inquietude, indulge every caprice, and perhaps at last be jilted into the bargain. True glory, on the other hand, resembles a woman of sense; her admirers must play no tricks. They feel no great anxiety, for they are sure in the end of being rewarded in proportion to their merit.

Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, I see the lords of humankind pass by.

Processions, cavalcades, and all that fund of gay frippery, furnished out by tailors, barbers, and tire-women, mechanically influence the mind into veneration; an emperor in his nightcap would not meet with half the respect of an emperor with a crown.

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.

Religion does what philosophy could never do; it shows the equal dealings of Heaven to the happy and the unhappy, and levels all human enjoyments to nearly the same standard. It gives to both rich and poor the same happiness hereafter, and equal hopes to aspire after it.

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

Ridicule has always been the enemy of enthusiasm, and the only worthy opponent to ridicule is success.

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

Romance and novel paint beauty in colors more charming than nature, and describe a happiness that humans never taste. How deceptive and destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss!

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

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.

Silence gives consent.

Silence is become his mother tongue.

Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view.

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

Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.

Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt; It 's like sending them ruffles when wanting a shirt.

Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, His first best country ever is at home.

Surely the best way to meet the enemy is head on in the field and not wait till they plunder our very homes.

Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain.

Sweet was the sound, when oft, at evening's close, Up yonder hill the village murmur rose; There as I passed, with careless steps and slow, The mingling notes came soften'd from below; The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung, The sober herd that low'd to meet their young; The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school; The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind; These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made.

Take a dollar from a thousand and it will be a thousand no more.

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

Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain.

Tenderness is a virtue.

The ambitious are forever followed by adulation for they receive the most pleasure from flattery.

The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love.

The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.

The bounds of a man's knowledge are easily concealed, if he has but prudence.

The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.

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

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

The Europeans are themselves blind who describe fortune without sight. No first-rate beauty ever had finer eyes, or saw more clearly. They who have no other trade but seeking their fortune need never hope to find her; coquette-like, she flies from her close pursuers, and at last fixes on the plodding mechanic who stays at home and minds his business.

The first blow is half the battle.

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.