Top 300 Oliver Goldsmith Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Hope, like the gleaming taper.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

52. “If one wishes to become rich they must appear rich.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

53. “Offences are easily pardoned where there is love at the bottom.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

54. “True wisdom consists of tracing effects to their causes.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

55. “The soul may be compared to a field of battle, where the armies are ready every moment to encounter. Not a single vice but has a more powerful opponent, and not one virtue but may be overborne by a combination of vices.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

56. “Could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

57. “In arguing too, the parson own’d his skill, For e’en though vanquish’d he could argue still; While words of learned length and thundering sound Amaz’d the gazing rustics rang’d around; And still they gaz’d, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

58. “The nakedness of the indigent world may be clothed from the trimmings of the vain.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

59. “A reserved lover, it is said, always makes a suspicious husband.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

60. “Hope, like the gleaming taper’s light, adorns and cheers our way; and still, as darker grows the night, emits a brighter ray.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

61. “The volume of Nature is the book of knowledge.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

62. “Don’t let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

63. “Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began. Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And even his failings lean’d to Virtue’s side.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

64. “Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, Or by the lazy Scheld or wandering Po.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

65. “O Luxury! thou curst by Heaven’s decree!”

— Oliver Goldsmith

66. “They say women and music should never be dated.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

67. “Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace the day’s disasters in his morning face.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

68. “Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

69. “I was ever of the opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single, and only talked of population.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

70. “Tenderness is a virtue.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

71. “Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

72. “O friendship! thou fond soother of the human breast, to thee we fly in every calamity; to thee the wretched seek for succor; on thee the care-tired son of misery fondly relies; from thy kind assistance the unfortunate always hopes relief, and may be sure of – disappointment.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

73. “Fine declamation does not consist in flowery periods, delicate allusions of musical cadences, but in a plain, open, loose style, where the periods are long and obvious, where the same thought is often exhibited in several points of view.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

74. “A kind and gentle heart he had, To comfort friends and foes; The naked every day he clad When he put on his clothes.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

75. “The very pink of perfection.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

76. “The bashful virgin’s sidelong looks of love.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

77. “Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

78. “A silent address is the genuine eloquence of sincerity.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

79. “Indeed, Constance, you amaze me. Such a girl as you want jewels! It will be time enough for jewels, my dear, twenty years hence, when your beauty begins to want repairs.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

80. “Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, I see the lords of humankind pass by.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

81. “Error is always talkative.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

82. “And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

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

— Oliver Goldsmith

84. “A volcano may be considered as a cannon of immense size.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

85. “Blame where you must, be candid where you can, And be each critic the Good-natured Man.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

86. “Crime generally punishes itself.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

87. “Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

88. “Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog And in that town a dog was found, As many dogs there be, Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, And curs of low degree.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

89. “If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

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

— Oliver Goldsmith

91. “Those who think must govern those that toil.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

92. “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.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

93. “As ten millions of circles can never make a square, so the united voice of myriads cannot lend the smallest foundation to falsehood.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

94. “Turn, gentle Hermit of the Dale, And guide my lonely way To where yon taper cheers the vale With hospitable ray.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

95. “Blest that abode, where want and pain repair, And every stranger finds a ready chair.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

96. “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?”

— Oliver Goldsmith

97. “All the bloomy flush of life is fled.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

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

— Oliver Goldsmith

99. “Amid thy desert-walks the lapwing flies, And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

100. “There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher.”

— Oliver Goldsmith