Quotes By Oliver Goldsmith

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

The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.

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

Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.

Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.

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.

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.

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.

They say women and music should never be dated.

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

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.

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.

Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.

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.

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!

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

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.

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

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.

Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other.

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.