Oliver Goldsmith Quotes

Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,
Shoulder'd his crutch, and shew'd how fields were won.

A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year.

The watchdog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.

Bends to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past.

How happy he who crowns in shades like these,
A youth of labour with an age of ease.

His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.

The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,
The matron's glance that would those looks reprove.

The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made.

Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain.

Certainly, in two opposite opinions, if one be perfectly reasonable, the other can't be perfectly right.

Measures, not men, have always been my mark.

Silence gives consent.

Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.

Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.