Oliver Goldsmith
Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can, An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man.Collection: Lying
Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt; It 's like sending them ruffles when wanting a shirt.Collection: Hurt
Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view.Collection: Views
Our Garrick 's a salad; for in him we see Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree!Collection: Oil
O Luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree!Collection: Luxury
I have seen her and sister cry over a book for an hour together, and they said, they liked the book the better the more it made them cry.Collection: Book
Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe, That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so.Collection: Woe
Our bounty, like a drop of water, disappears, when diffus'd too widelyCollection: Water
An emperor in his nightcap will not meet with half the respect of an emperor with a crown.Collection: Crowns
The way to acquire lasting esteem is not by the fewness of a writer's faults, but the greatness of his beauties, and our noblest works are generally most replete with both.Collection: Greatness
Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine!Collection: World
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.Collection: Philosophy
The ambitious are forever followed by adulation for they receive the most pleasure from flattery.Collection: Ambition
We sometimes had those little rubs which Providence sends to enhance the value of its favors.Collection: Favors
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.Collection: Horse
The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.Collection: Dog
I hate the French because they are all slaves and wear wooden shoes.Collection: Hate
The little mind who loves itself, will wr'te and think with the vulgar; but the great mind will be bravely eccentric, and scorn the beaten road, from universal benevolence.Collection: Thinking
Ridicule has even been the most powerful enemy of enthusiasm, and properly the only antagonist that can be opposed to it with success.Collection: Powerful
What real good does an addition to a fortune already sufficient procure? Not any. Could the great man, by having his fortune increased, increase also his appetites, then precedence might be attended with real amusement.Collection: Real
The premises being thus settled, I proceed to observe that the concatenation of self-existence, proceeding in a reciprocal duplicate ratio, naturally produces a problematical dialogism, which in some measure proves that the essence of spirituality may be referred to the second predicable.Collection: Self
Thus love is the most easy and agreeable, and gratitude the most humiliating, affection of the mind. We never reflect on the man we love without exulting in our choice, while he who has bound us to him by benefits alone rises to our ideas as a person to whom we have in some measure forfeited our freedom.Collection: Gratitude
Filial obedience is the first and greatest requisite of a state; by this we become good subjects to our emperors, capable of behaving with just subordination to our superiors, and grateful dependents on heaven; by this we become fonder of marriage, in order to be capable of exacting obedience from others in our turn; 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.Collection: Grateful
There is a greatness in being generous, and there is only simple justice in satisfying creditors. Generosity is the part of the soul raised above the vulgar.Collection: Simple
Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace The day's disasters in his morning face; Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee At all his jokes, for many a joke had he; Full well the busy whisper circling round Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd. Yet was he kind, or if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault; The village all declar'd how much he knew, 'Twas certain he could write and cipher too.Collection: Morning
As for disappointing them I should not so much mind; but I can't abide to disappoint myself.Collection: Disappointment
The volume of Nature is the book of knowledge.Collection: Nature
What cities, as great as this, have... promised themselves immortality! Posterity can hardly trace the situation of some. The sorrowful traveller wanders over the awful ruins of others... Here stood their citadel, but now grown over with weeds; there their senate-house, but now the haunt of every noxious reptile; temples and theatres stood here, now only an undistinguished heap of ruins.Collection: Weed
The youth who follows his appetites too soon seizes the cup, before it has received its best ingredients, and by anticipating his pleasures, robs the remaining parts of life of their share, so that his eagerness only produces manhood of imbecility and an age of pain.Collection: Pain
If we look round the world, there seem to be not above six distinct varieties in the human species, each of which is strongly marked, and speaks the kind seldom to have mixed with any other. But there is nothing in the shape, nothing in the faculties, that shows their coming from different originals; and the varieties of climate, of nourishment, and custom, are sufficient to produce every change.Collection: Science
As few subjects are more interesting to society, so few have been more frequently written upon than the education of youth.Collection: Education
The Europeans are themselves blind who describe fortune without sight. No first-rate beauty ever had finer eyes, or saw more clearly. They who have no other trade but seeking their fortune need never hope to find her; coquette-like, she flies from her close pursuers, and at last fixes on the plodding mechanic who stays at home and minds his business.Collection: Eye
Girls like to be played with and rumpled a little too sometimes.Collection: Girl
He makes a very handsome corpse and becomes his coffin prodigiously.Collection: Sarcastic
Novels teach the youthful mind to sigh after happiness that never existed.Collection: Mind
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, that one small head could carry all he knew.Collection: Knowledge
Politics resemble religion; attempting to divest either of ceremony is the most certain mode of bringing either into contempt.Collection: Politics
Pity, though it may often relieve, is but, at best, a short-lived passion, and seldom affords distress more than transitory assistance; with some it scarce lasts from the first impulse till the hand can be put into the pocket.Collection: Passion
There are but few talents requisite to become a popular preacher; for the people are easily pleased if they perceive any endeavors in the orator to please them. The meanest qualifications will work this effect if the preacher sincerely sets about it.Collection: People
The polite of every country seem to have but one character. A gentleman of Sweden differs but little, except in trifles, from one of any other country. It is among the vulgar we are to find those distinctions which characterize a people.Collection: Country
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie.Collection: Lying
All that philosophy can teach is to be stubborn or sullen under misfortunes.Collection: Philosophy
Our pleasures are short, and can only charm at intervals; love is a method of protraction our greatest pleasure.Collection: Love
To be poor, and to seem poor, is a certain method never to rise.Collection: Poverty
To make a fine gentleman, several trades are required, but chiefly a barber.Collection: Gentleman