Quotes from Oliver Goldsmith

Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,Or by the lazy Scheldt, or wandering Po.

This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey.

I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;A breath can make them, as a breath has made;But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.

Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart untravelled, fondly turns to thee; Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain, And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.

They liked the book the better the more it made them cry.

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 a vagabond.

Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.

[To Dr. Johnson:] If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.

The only art her guilt to cover,To hide her shame from every eye,To give repentance to her lover,And wring his bosom, is—to die.

Handsome is that handsome does.

Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies.

For just experience tells; in every soil,That those that think must govern those that toil.

I… chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well.

Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray.

In my time, the follies of the town crept slowly among us, but now they travel faster than a stagecoach.

There is no arguing with Johnson: for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it.

I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.

Let school-masters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning; Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.

Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,His first, best country ever is, at home.

The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.

The good man suffers but to gain, And every virtue springs from pain; As aromatic plants bestow No spicy fragrance while they grow; But crush'd or trodden to the ground, Diffuse their balmy sweets around.

To me more dear, congenial to my heart,One native charm, than all the gloss of art.

Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,My heart untravel'd fondly turns to thee;Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain,And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.