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.
Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
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.
If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.
Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other.
Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.
Tenderness is a virtue.
Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.
I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 'Twas only when he was off, he was acting.
Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.
Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same.
Could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet.
They say women and music should never be dated.
All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, praised a little, and appreciated a little.
Hope, like the gleaming taper's light, adorns and cheers our way; and still, as darker grows the night, emits a brighter ray.
Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long.
Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.
Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.
Surely the best way to meet the enemy is head on in the field and not wait till they plunder our very homes.
Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.
People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.
The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.
The very pink of perfection.
