The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Laughter
There is an unspeakable pleasure attending the life of a voluntary student.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Study
Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Lawyers, Law
People seldom improve, when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.
—Oliver Goldsmith
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.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Marriage
The mind is ever ingenious in making its own distress.
—Oliver Goldsmith
With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Nationalism, Nationalities, Nation, Nationality
People seek within a short span of life to satisfy a thousand desires, each of which is insatiable.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Desire, Desires
Nothing is so contemptible as that affectation of wisdom which some display by universal incredulity.
—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.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Anticipation, Regret
To pursue trifles is the lot of humanity; and whether we bustle in a pantomime, or strut at a coronation, or shout at a bonfire, or harangue in a senate-house; whatever object we follow, it will at last conduct us to futility and disappointment. The wise bustle and laugh as they walk in the pageant, but fools bustle and are important; and this probably, is all the difference between them.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Fools
It has been a thousand times observed, and I must observe it once more, that the hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowned with fruition.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Anticipation, Realistic Expectations, Hope, Future
There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Mistakes, Faults
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, where wealth accumulates, and men decay.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Wealth
Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Manners
Philosophy can add to our happiness in no other manner but by diminishing our misery; it should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of. Happy were we all born philosophers; all born with a talent of thus dissipating our own cares by spreading them upon all mankind.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Gratitude, Appreciation, Blessings, Philosophy
No one but a fool would measure their satisfaction by what the world thinks of it.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Foolishness, Fools, Satisfaction
The life of man is a journey; a journey that must be traveled, however bad the roads or the accommodation.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Travel, Journeys, Tourism
A poor man resembles a fiddler, whose music, though liked, is not much praised, because he lives by it; while a gentleman performer, though the most wretched scraper alive, throws the audience into rapture.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Poverty
By struggling with misfortunes, we are sure to receive some wounds in the conflict; but a sure method to come off victorious is by running away.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Misfortune
The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Foolishness, Fools
The first blow is half the battle.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Battle, Beginning
Some are found to travel with no other intent than that of understanding and collecting pictures, studying seals, and describing statues; on they travel from this cabinet of curiosities to that gallery of pictures; waste the prime of life in wonder; skilful in pictures; ignorant in men; yet impossible to be reclaimed, because their follies take shelter under the names of delicacy and taste.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Travel
Vain, very vain is my search to find; that happiness which only centers in the mind.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: The Mind, Mind
Unequal combinations are always disadvantageous to the weaker side.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Business
A traveler of taste will notice that the wise are polite all over the world, but the fool only at home.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Manners
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.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Little things are great to little men.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Life
The patriot’s boast, where’er we roam, his first, best country ever is at home.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Patriotism
By expectation every day beguiled; dupe of tomorrow even from a child.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Expectation
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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