Quotes from Oliver Goldsmith

A boy will learn more true wisdom in a public school in a year than by a private education in five. It is not from masters, but from their equals, that youth learn a knowledge of the world.

As few subjects are more interesting to society, so few have been more frequently written upon than the education of youth.

To aim at excellence, our reputation, and friends, and all must be ventured; to aim at the average we run no risk and provide little service.

Whatever the skill of any country may be in the sciences, it is from its excellence in polite learning alone that it must expect a character from posterity.

I have found by experience that they who have spent all their lives in cities contract not only an effeminacy of habit, but of thinking.

Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails, And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.

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.

Fear guides more than gratitude.

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.

He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle them back.

And what is friendship but a name, A charm that lulls to sleep, A shade that follows wealth or fame, And leaves the wretch to weep?

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

People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.

Be not affronted at a joke. If one throw salt at thee, thou wilt receive no harm, unless thou art raw.

Our Garrick's a salad; for in him we see, Oil, vinegar, sugar and saltiness agree

I always get the better when I argue alone.

When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy, what art can wash her guilt away?

Our pleasures are short, and can only charm at intervals; love is a method of protraction our greatest pleasure.

She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice, and trains up the other to virtue, is a much greater character than the ladies described in romance, whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their quiver or their eyes.

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law

I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well

Wisdom makes a slow defense against trouble, though a sure one in the end.

To aim at erxcellence, our reputation, and friends, and all must be ventured; to aim at the average we run no risk and provide little service.

For just experience tells, in every soil, That those who think must govern those who toil