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Quotes by Oliver Goldsmith

Aromatic plants bestow no spicy fragrance while they grow; but crush'd or trodden to the ground, diffuse their balmy sweets around.
– Oliver Goldsmith
Be not affronted at a joke. If one throw salt at thee, thou wilt receive no harm, unless thou art raw.
– Oliver Goldsmith
Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
– Oliver Goldsmith
Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.
– Oliver Goldsmith
Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.
– Oliver Goldsmith
It's a damned long, boggy, dirty, dangerous way.
– Oliver Goldsmith
Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.
– Oliver Goldsmith
Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long.
– Oliver Goldsmith
Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.
– Oliver Goldsmith
Our greatest glory consists not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.
– Oliver Goldsmith
People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.
– Oliver Goldsmith
Surely the best way to meet the enemy is head on in the field and not wait till they plunder our very homes.
– Oliver Goldsmith
The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.
– Oliver Goldsmith
The very pink of perfection.
– Oliver Goldsmith
There is no arguing with Johnson; for when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it.
– Oliver Goldsmith
You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.
– Oliver Goldsmith
The dancing pair that simply sought renown,
By holding out to tire each other down;
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,While secret laughter titter'd round the place;
The bashful virgin's side-long looks of love,
The matrons glance that would those looks reprove:
These were thy charms, sweet village; sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please;
These were thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,
These were thy charms -- but all these charms are fled.
– Oliver Goldsmith
Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.
– Oliver Goldsmith
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
Ill fares the land, to hast'ning ill a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and Lords may flourish, or may fade:
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
but a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied.
– Oliver Goldsmith
The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.
– Oliver Goldsmith
Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.
– Oliver Goldsmith
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!
– Oliver Goldsmith
Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other.
– Oliver Goldsmith
I love everything that's old, - old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.
– Oliver Goldsmith
I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.
– Oliver Goldsmith
Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.
– Oliver Goldsmith
As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent whence must necessarily arise a desire of attaining knowledge with the greatest possible ease.
– Oliver Goldsmith
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
A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future.
– Oliver Goldsmith