A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation; therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

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.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent; whence must necessarily arise a desire of attaining knowledge with the greatest possible ease.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

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

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

Could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

Girls like to be played with, and rumpled a little too, sometimes.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

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

I love everything that's old, - old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

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

Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

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

Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

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 Quote

Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

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 Quote

The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

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

The jests of the rich are ever successful.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

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

They say women and music should never be dated.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

Where wealth accumulates, men decay.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote

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

You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.
- Oliver Goldsmith Quote