Oliver Goldsmith Quotes

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Oliver Goldsmith

Profession : Poet

Birth : November 10, 1730

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

Oliver Goldsmith

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

Oliver Goldsmith

Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same.

Oliver Goldsmith

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

On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 'Twas only when he was off, he was acting.

Oliver Goldsmith

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

Oliver Goldsmith

Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.

Oliver Goldsmith

The jests of the rich are ever successful.

Oliver Goldsmith

There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.

Oliver Goldsmith

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

Oliver Goldsmith

Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.

Oliver Goldsmith

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

Oliver Goldsmith

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

Oliver Goldsmith

Girls like to be played with, and rumpled a little too, sometimes.

Oliver Goldsmith

The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.

Oliver Goldsmith

Romance and novel paint beauty in colors more charming than nature, and describe a happiness that humans never taste. How deceptive and destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss!

Oliver Goldsmith

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

With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.

Oliver Goldsmith