Quotes By 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.

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

Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same.

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

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

When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy, what art can wash her guilt away?

They say women and music should never be dated.

Where wealth accumulates, men decay.

Tenderness is a virtue.

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

With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.

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.

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.

Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long.

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

Girls like to be played with, and rumpled a little too, sometimes.

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

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.

I was ever of the opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single, and only talked of population.

All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, praised a little, and appreciated a little.

Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.

You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.

I love everything that's old, - old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.

Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.

There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.

Could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet.

The jests of the rich are ever successful.

Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law.

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

Be not affronted at a joke. If one throw salt at thee, thou wilt receive no harm, unless thou art raw.