Quotes by Goldsmith, Oliver

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

Goldsmith, Oliver on desire   

"For he that fights and runs away, may live to fight another day, but he, who is in battle slain, can never rise and fight again."

Goldsmith, Oliver on discretion   

"The doctor found, when she was dead, her last disorder mortal."

Goldsmith, Oliver on doctors   

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

Goldsmith, Oliver on dress   

"Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe, that found me poor at first, and keep me so."

Goldsmith, Oliver on drugs   

"But in his duty prompt at every call, he watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all."

Goldsmith, Oliver on duty   

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

Goldsmith, Oliver on example   

"To aim at excellence, our reputation, and friends, and all must be ventured; to aim at the average we run no risk and provide little service."

Goldsmith, Oliver on excellence   

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

Goldsmith, Oliver on faults   

"Some faults are so closely allied to qualities that it is difficult to weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue."

Goldsmith, Oliver on faults   

"Fear guides more than gratitude."

Goldsmith, Oliver on fear   

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

Goldsmith, Oliver on fools and foolishness   

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

Goldsmith, Oliver on fools and foolishness
3 fans of this quote   

"Fortune is ever seen accompanying industry."

Goldsmith, Oliver on fortune   

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

Goldsmith, Oliver on friends and friendship   

"Whenever you see a gaming table be sure to know fortune is not there. Rather she is always in the company of industry."

Goldsmith, Oliver on gambling   

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

Goldsmith, Oliver on girls   

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"I can't say whether we had more wit among us now than usual, but I am certain we had more laughing, which answered the end as well."

Goldsmith, Oliver on alcohol and alcoholism   

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

Goldsmith, Oliver on ambition   

"In all the silent manliness of grief."

Goldsmith, Oliver on grief   

"When any one of our relations was found to be a person of a very bad character, a troublesome guest, or one we desired to get rid of, upon his leaving my house I ever took care to lend him a riding-coat, or a pair of boots, or sometimes a horse of small value, and I always had the satisfaction of finding he never came back to return them."

Goldsmith, Oliver on guests   

"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."

Goldsmith, Oliver on happiness   

"The hours that we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowned with success."

Goldsmith, Oliver on hope
3 fans of this quote   

"And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, that one small head could carry all he knew."

Goldsmith, Oliver on intelligence and intellectuals   

"The malicious sneer is improperly called laughter."

Goldsmith, Oliver on laughter   

"The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind."

Goldsmith, Oliver on laughter   

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

Goldsmith, Oliver on laughter   

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

Goldsmith, Oliver on law and lawyers   

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

Goldsmith, Oliver on law and lawyers
5 fans of this quote   

"The life of man is a journey; a journey that must be traveled, however bad the roads or the accommodation."

Goldsmith, Oliver on life
7 fans of this quote   

"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."

Goldsmith, Oliver on life   

"If one wishes to become rich they must appear rich."

Goldsmith, Oliver on appearance   

"There is no arguing with him, for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it."

Goldsmith, Oliver on argument
4 fans of this quote   

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

Goldsmith, Oliver on aristocracy   

"Who can direct when all pretend to know?"

Goldsmith, Oliver on management   

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

Goldsmith, Oliver on manners   

"A traveler of taste will notice that the wise are polite all over the world, but the fool only at home."

Goldsmith, Oliver on manners   

"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."

Goldsmith, Oliver on marriage   

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

Goldsmith, Oliver on materialism   

"Vain, very vain is my search to find; that happiness which only centers in the mind."

Goldsmith, Oliver on mind