Top 300 Oliver Goldsmith Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “In two opposite opinions, if one be perfectly reasonable, the other can’t be perfectly right.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

202. “We sometimes had those little rubs which Providence sends to enhance the value of its favors.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

203. “What if in Scotland’s wilds we viel’d our head, Where tempests whistle round the sordid bed; Where the rug’s two-fold use we might display, By night a blanket, and a plaid by day.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

204. “Embosom’d in the deep where Holland lies. Methinks her patient sons before me stand, Where the broad ocean leans against the land.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

205. “By every remove I only drag a greater length of chain.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

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

— Oliver Goldsmith

207. “What is genius or courage without a heart?”

— Oliver Goldsmith

208. “We are not to judge of the feelings of others by what we might feel if in their place. However dark the habitation of the mole to our eyes, yet the animal itself finds the apartment sufficiently lightsome.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

209. “As for murmurs, mother, we grumble a little now and then, to be sure; but there’s no love lost between us.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

210. “Every want that stimulates the breast becomes a source of pleasure when redressed.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

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

— Oliver Goldsmith

212. “It has been well observed that few are better qualified to give others advice than those who have taken the least of it themselves.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

213. “There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher. Fontenelle says he would undertake to persuade the whole public of readers to believe that the sun was neither the cause of light or heat, if he could only get six philosophers on his side.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

214. “Novels teach the youthful mind to sigh after happiness that never existed.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

215. “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.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

216. “While selfishness joins hands with no one of the virtues, benevolence is allied to them all.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

217. “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.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

218. “The fortunate circumstances of our lives are generally found, at last, to be of our own producing.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

219. “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.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

220. “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.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

221. “Our Garrick ’s a salad; for in him we see Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree!”

— Oliver Goldsmith

222. “Persecution is a tribute the great must always pay for preeminence.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

223. “Whichever way we look the prospect is disagreeable. Behind, we have left pleasures we shall never enjoy, and therefore regret; and before, we see pleasures which we languish to possess, and are consequently uneasy till we possess them.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

224. “And as a bird each fond endearment tries To tempt its new-fledg’d offspring to the skies, He tried each art, reprov’d each dull delay, Allur’d to brighter worlds, and led the way.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

225. “Even children follow’d with endearing wile, And pluck’d his gown, to share the good man’s smile.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

226. “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.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

227. “What we place most hopes upon, generally proves most fatal.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

228. “Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

229. “So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind’s roar, But bind him to his native mountains more.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

230. “Politics resemble religion; attempting to divest either of ceremony is the most certain mode of bringing either into contempt.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

231. “An emperor in his nightcap will not meet with half the respect of an emperor with a crown.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

232. “In a polite age almost every person becomes a reader, and receives more instruction from the Press than the Pulpit.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

233. “Surely the best way to meet the enemy is head on in the field and not wait till they plunder our very homes.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

234. “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.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

235. “The malicious sneer is improperly called laughter.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

236. “Taste is the power of relishing or rejecting whatever is offered for the entertainment of the imagination.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

237. “The person whose clothes are extremely fine I am too apt to consider as not being possessed of any superiority of fortune, but resembling those Indians who are found to wear all the gold they have in the world in a bob at the nose.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

238. “I can’t say whether we had more wit among us now than usual, but I am certain we had more laughing, which answered the end as well.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

239. “There is probably no country so barbarous that would not disclose all it knew, if it received equivalent information; and I am apt to think that a person who was ready to give more knowledge than he received would be welcome wherever he came.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

240. “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.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

241. “Vain, very vain is my search to find; that happiness which only centers in the mind.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

242. “I could not but smile to hear her talking in this lofty strain, but I was never much displeased with those harmless delusions that tend to make us more happy.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

243. “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.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

244. “Though very poor, may still be very blest.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

245. “This is that eloquence the ancients represented as lightning, bearing down every opposer; this the power which has turned whole assemblies into astonishment, admiration and awe- – that is described by the torrent, the flame, and every other instance of irresistible impetuosity.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

246. “All that philosophy can teach is to be stubborn or sullen under misfortunes.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

247. “Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity. The ignorant peasant without fault is greater than the philosopher with many. What is genius or courage without a heart?”

— Oliver Goldsmith

248. “Life at the greatest and best is but a froward child, that must be humored and coaxed a little till it falls asleep, and then all the care is over.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

249. “The pain which conscience gives the man who has already done wrong is soon got over. Conscience is a coward; and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent, it seldom has justice enough to accuse.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

250. “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.”

— Oliver Goldsmith