Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Perseverance, Resolve, Endurance
People seldom improve, when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Allured to brighter worlds and led the way.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Example
O luxury! Thou curst of heaven’s decree.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Luxury
True generosity does not consist in obeying every impulse of humanity, in following blind passion for our guide, and impairing our circumstances by present benefactions, so as to render us incapable of future ones.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Generosity
To embarrass justice by a multiplicity of laws, or hazard it by a confidence in our judges, are, I grant, the opposite rocks on which legislative wisdom has ever split; in one case the client resembles that emperor who is said to have been suffocated with the bedclothes, which were only designed to keep him warm; in the other, that town which let the enemy take possession of its walls, in order to show the world how little they depended upon aught but courage for safety.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Justice
But in his duty prompt at every call, he watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Duty
They may talk of a comet, or a burning mountain, or some such bagatelle; but to me a modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Women, Fashion, Dress
Want of prudence is too frequently the want of virtue; nor is there on earth a more powerful advocate for vice than poverty.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Poverty, Virtue, Prudence
Of all kinds of ambition, that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Ambition, Poetry
The greatest object in the universe, says a certain philosopher, is a good man struggling with adversity; yet there is still a greater, which is the good man that comes to relieve it.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Adversity
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
Topics: Hope, Light
Wisdom makes but a slow defense against trouble, though at last a sure one.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Defense, Wisdom
Politics resemble religion; attempting to divest either of ceremony is the most certain method of bringing either into contempt. The weak must have their inducements to admiration as well as the wise; and it is the business of a sensible government to impress all ranks with a sense of subordination, whether this be effected by a diamond, or a virtuous edict, a sumptuary law, or a glass necklace.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Government
We take greater pains to persuade others that we are happy, than in endeavoring to be so ourselves.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Happiness
I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Aristocracy
Fear guides more than gratitude.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Fear
None has more frequent conversations with disagreeable self than the man of pleasure; his enthusiasms are but few and transient; his appetites, like angry creditors, are continually making fruitless demands for what he is unable to pay; and the greater his former pleasures, the more strong his regret, the more impatient his expectations. A life of pleasure is, therefore, the most unpleasing life.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Pleasure
Politeness is the result of good sense and good nature. A person possessed of these qualities, though he has never seen a court, is truly agreeable; and if without them, would continue a clown, though he had been all his lifetime a gentleman usher.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Politeness
Villainy, when detected, never gives up, but boldly adds impudence to imposture.
—Oliver Goldsmith
The work of eradicating crimes is not by making punishment familiar, but formidable.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Punishment
His greatest riches-ignorance of wealth.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Wealth
The bounds of a man’s knowledge are easily concealed if he has but prudence.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Prudence
Filial obedience is the first and greatest requisite of a state; by this we become good subjects to our rulers, capable of behaving with just subordination to our superiors, and grateful dependants on heaven. By this we become good magistrates; for early submission is the truest lesson to those who would learn to rule. By this the whole state may be said to resemble one family, of which the monarch is the protector, father, and friend.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Obedience
Blest be those feasts, with simple plenty crowned, Where all the ruddy family around Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Eating
By expectation every day beguiled; dupe of tomorrow even from a child.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Expectation
Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Manners
Ceremony resembles that base coin which circulates through a country by royal mandate; it serves every purposs of real money at home, but is entirely useless if carried abroad.—A person who should attempt to circulate his native trash in another country would be thought either ridiculous or culpable.
—Oliver Goldsmith
The unaffected of every country nearly resemble each other, and a page of Confucius and Tillotson have scarce any material difference, paltry affectation, strained allusions, and disgusting finery are easily attained by those who choose to wear them; they are but too frequently the badges of ignorance or of stupidity whenever it would endeavor to please.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Style, Affectation
He who seeks for applause only from without has all his happiness in another’s keeping.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Realization, Acceptance, Awareness
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Oscar Wilde Irish Poet, Playwright
- George William Russell Irish Author
- Brendan Behan Irish Poet
- Jonathan Swift Irish Satirist
- Edmund Burke British Philosopher, Statesman
- William Butler Yeats Irish Poet
- James Joyce Irish Novelist
- Laurence Sterne Irish Anglican Novelist
- Elizabeth Bowen Irish Novelist
- Sheridan Le Fanu Irish Novelist
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