Oliver Goldsmith
As boys should be educated with temperance, so the first greatest lesson that should be taught them is to admire frugality. It is by the exercise of this virtue alone they can ever expect to be useful members of society.Collection: Exercise
We are all sure of two things, at least; we shall suffer and we shall all die.Collection: Destiny
Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity; it is that which gives value to every character. The ignorant peasant, without fault, is greater than the philosopher with many; for what is genius or courage without a heart?Collection: Inspirational
People seek within a short span of life to satisfy a thousand desires, each of which is insatiable.Collection: Inspirational
One man is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and the other with a wooden ladle.Collection: Men
True generosity is a duty as indispensably necessary as those imposed upon us by the law. It is a rule imposed upon us by reason, which should be the sovereign law of a rational being.Collection: Law
The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.Collection: Use It Or Lose It
Friendship is made up of esteem and pleasure; pity is composed of sorrow and contempt: the mind may for some time fluctuate between them, but it can never entertain both at once.Collection: Friendship
Villainy, when detected, never gives up, but boldly adds impudence to imposture.Collection: Giving Up
True genius walks along a line, and, perhaps, our greatest pleasure is in seeing it so often near falling, without being ever actually down.Collection: Fall
I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.Collection: Names
It has been remarked that almost every character which has excited either attention or pity has owed part of its success to merit, and part to a happy concurrence of circumstances in its favor. Had Caesar or Cromwell exchanged countries, the one might have been a sergeant and the other an exciseman.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Marriage
Every acknowledgment of gratitude is a circumstance of humiliation; and some are found to submit to frequent mortifications of this kind, proclaiming what obligations they owe, merely because they think it in some measure cancels the debt.Collection: Gratitude
I always get the better when I argue alone.Collection: Funny
Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails, And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.Collection: Failure
Blame where you must, be candid where you can, And be each critic the Good-natured Man.Collection: Men
Man little knows what calamities are beyond his patience to bear till he tries them; as in ascending the heights of ambition, which look bright from below, every step we rise shows us some new and gloomy prospect of hidden disappointment; so in our descent from the summits of pleasure, though the vale of misery below may appear, at first, dark and gloomy, yet the busy mind, still attentive to its own amusement, finds, as we descend, something to flatter and to please. Still as we approach, the darkest objects appear to brighten, and the mortal eye becomes adapted to its gloomy situation.Collection: Disappointment
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace the day's disasters in his morning face.Collection: Teacher
The very pink of perfection.Collection: Perfection
[T]here are depths of thousands of miles which are hidden from our inquiry. The only tidings we have from those unfathomable regions are by means of volcanoes, those burning mountains that seem to discharge their materials from the lowest abysses of the earth.Collection: Mean
The sports of children satisfy the child.Collection: Sports
Good counsel rejected returns to enrich the givers bosom.Collection: Return
It seemed to me pretty plain, that they had more of love than matrimony in them.Collection: Love
The malicious sneer is improperly called laughter.Collection: Laughter
It is impossible to combat enthusiasm with reason; for though it makes a show of resistance, it soon eludes the pressure, refers you to distinctions not to be understood, and feelings which it cannot explain. A man who would endeavor to fix an enthusiast by argument might as well attempt to spread quicksilver with his finger.Collection: Men
Death when unmasked shows us a friendly face and is a terror only at a distance.Collection: Death
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,- Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head.Collection: Sunshine
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, Shoulder'd his crutch, and shew'd how fields were won.Collection: Sorrow
We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all our adventures were by the fireside, and all our migrations from the blue bed to the brown.Collection: Retirement
Aspiring beggary is wretchedness itself.Collection: Wretchedness
Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain.Collection: Sweet
Fear guides more than gratitude.Collection: Gratitude
A book may be very amusing with numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity.Collection: Book
Fancy restrained may be compared to a fountain, which plays highest by diminishing the aperture.Collection: Play
Persecution is a tribute the great must always pay for preeminence.Collection: Prejudice
Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore.Collection: Children
A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year.Collection: Country
The whitewash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor, The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door; The chest, contriv'd a double debt to pay,- A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.Collection: Wall
The wisdom of the ignorant somewhat resembles the instinct of animals; it is diffused in but a very narrow sphere, but within the circle it acts with vigor, uniformity, and success.Collection: Wisdom
By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd; The sports of children satisfy the child.Collection: Sports
In proportion as society refines, new books must ever become more necessary.Collection: Book
Though very poor, may still be very blest.Collection: May
Men may be very learned, and yet very miserable; it is easy to be a deep geometrician, or a sublime astronomer, but very difficult to be a good man. I esteem, therefore, the traveller who instructs the heart, but despise him who only indulges the imagination. A man who leaves home to mend himself and others, is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is only a vagabond.Collection: Country
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.Collection: Sweet
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar, But bind him to his native mountains more.Collection: Country
Our chief comforts often produce our greatest anxieties, and the increase in our possessions is but an inlet to new disquietudes.Collection: Anxiety