Oliver Goldsmith Quotes
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Philosophy ... should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of.
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There is one way by which a strolling player may be ever secure of success; that is, in our theatrical way of expressing it, to make a great deal of the character. To speak and act as in common life is not playing, nor is it what people come to see; natural speaking, like sweet wine, runs glibly over the palate and scarcely leaves any taste behind it; but being high in a part resembles vinegar, which grates upon the taste, and one feels it while he is drinking.
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Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please.
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Those who place their affections at first on trifles for amusement, will find these trifles become at last their most serious concerns.
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You will always find that those are most apt to boast of national merit, who have little or not merit of their own to depend on . . .
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The greatest object in the universe, says a certain philosopher, is a good man struggling with adversity; yet there is still a greater, which is the good man who comes to relieve it.
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And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
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As in some Irish houses, where things are so-so, One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show; But, for eating a rasher of what they take pride in, They'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fried in.
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You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.
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The man recovered of the bite, The dog it was that died.
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This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey.
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True genius walks along a line, and, perhaps, our greatest pleasure is in seeing it so often near falling, without being ever actually down.
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The fortunate circumstances of our lives are generally found, at last, to be of our own producing.
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Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.
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Whatever mitigates the woes, or increases the happiness of others, is a just criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it, is a criterion of iniquity.
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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.
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Absence, like death, sets a seal on the image of those we love: we cannot realize the intervening changes which time may have effected.
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As few subjects are more interesting to society, so few have been more frequently written upon than the education of youth.
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A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
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Error is ever talkative.
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Were I to be angry at men being fools, I could here find ample room for declamation; but, alas! I have been a fool myself; and why should I be angry with them for being something so natural to every child of humanity?
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If one wishes to become rich they must appear rich.
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Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies.
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Where wealth accumulates, men decay.
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It is impossible to combat enthusiasm with reason; for though it makes a show of resistance, it soon eludes the pressure, refers you to distinctions not to be understood, and feelings which it cannot explain. A man who would endeavor to fix an enthusiast by argument might as well attempt to spread quicksilver with his finger.
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The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.
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The first blow is half the battle.
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O Luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree!
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Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, and fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
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As ten millions of circles can never make a square, so the united voice of myriads cannot lend the smallest foundation to falsehood.
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