Oliver Goldsmith

Absence, like death, sets a seal on the image of those we love: we cannot realize the intervening changes which time may have effected.

All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, praised a little, and appreciated a little.

Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.

Ridicule has always been the enemy of enthusiasm, and the only worthy opponent to ridicule is success.

The fortunate circumstances of our lives are generally found, at last, to be of our own producing.

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!

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

The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I read a book over I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one.

We seldom speak of the virtue which we have, but much oftener of that which we lack.

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

Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails, And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.

O Luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree!

This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey.

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 destroy'd, can never be supplied.

Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, And the puff a dunce, he mistook it for fame; Till his relish grown callous, almost to displease, Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please.

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

The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.

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.

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

When we take a slight survey of the surface of our globe a thousand objects offer themselves which, though long known, yet still demand our curiosity.

Where wealth accumulates, men decay.