Oliver Goldsmith (November 10 1730 – April 4, 1774) was an Anglo-Irish 
      novelist, playwright and poet, who is best known for his novel The 
      Vicar of Wakefield (1766), his pastoral poem The Deserted Village 
      (1770), and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man (1768) and She 
      Stoops to Conquer (1771, first performed in 1773). He also wrote An 
      History of the Earth and Animated Nature. He is thought to have 
      written the classic children's tale The History of Little Goody 
      Two-Shoes, the source of the phrase "goody two-shoes." (Click 
      here for full Wikipedia article)
    
    
      -----
    
    
      A book may be very amusing with numerous errors, or it may be very dull 
      without a single absurdity.
    
    
      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.
    
    
      A modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous 
      object of the whole creation.
    
    
      All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, 
      praised a little, and appreciated a little.
    
    
      Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to 
      prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.
    
    
      Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real 
      ones to encounter.
    
    
      Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
    
    
      For he who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day;
But 
      he who is in battle slain
Can never rise and fight again.
    
    
      Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject 
      intercourse between tyrants and slaves.
    
    
      I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old 
      books, old wines.
    
    
      I... chose a wife, as she did her wedding gown, not for a fine glossy 
      surface, but such qualities as would wear well.
    
    
      Men may be very learned, and yet very miserable.
    
    
      Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler 
      virtues.
    
    
      Mortifications are often more painful than real calamities.
    
    
      O Memory! thou fond deceiver.
    
    
      Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every 
      time we fall.
    
    
      People seldom improve when they have no model but themselves to copy 
      after.
    
    
      Politeness is the result of good sense and good nature.
    
    
      Silence gives consent.
    
    
      Some faults are so closely allied to qualities that it is difficult to 
      weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.
    
    
      That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the 
      sentinel.
    
    
      The first blow is half the battle.
    
    
      The more enormous our wealth, the more extensive our fears, all our 
      possessions are paled up with new edicts every day, and hung round with 
      gibbets to scare every invader.
    
    
      The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal 
      them.
    
    
      You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.
    
Categories: 
Oliver Goldsmith, 
Quotes of the day
 Home
   
 KGB on Bluesky
   
 KGB on Substack
 KGB Stuff
 
 Commentwear
 
 E-Mail KGB
Donate via PayPal 
Older entries, Archives and Categories
     
Top of page