Oliver Goldsmith Men Quotations

Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law.

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

I was ever of the opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single, and only talked of population.

Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long.

Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.

What we say of a thing that has just come in fashion And that which we do with the dead, Is the name of the honestest man in the nation: What more of a man can be said?

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?

Logicians have but ill defined As rational the human mind; Reason, they say, belongs to man, But let them prove it if they can.

Blame where you must, be candid where you can, And be each critic the Good-natured Man.

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

What real good does an addition to a fortune already sufficient procure? Not any. Could the great man, by having his fortune increased, increase also his appetites, then precedence might be attended with real amusement.

Like the tiger, that seldom desists from pursuing man after having once preyed upon human flesh, the reader who has once gratified his appetite with calumny makes ever after the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputations!

I have visited many countries, and have been in cities without number, yet never did I enter a town which could not produce ten or twelve little great men; all fancying themselves known to the rest of the world, and complimenting each other upon their extensive reputation.

Where wealth accumulates, men decay.

Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can, An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man.

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.

Elegy of the Death of a Mad Dog The dog, to gain some praivate ends, Went mad and bit the man.

Even children follow'd with endearing wile, And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile.

The man recovered of the bite, The dog it was that died.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.

I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing.

Why was this heart of mine formed with so much sensibility! Or why not my fortune adapted to its impulses! Tenderness without a capacity of relieving only makes the man who feels it more wretched than the object which sues for assistance.

Thus love is the most easy and agreeable, and gratitude the most humiliating, affection of the mind. We never reflect on the man we love without exulting in our choice, while he who has bound us to him by benefits alone rises to our ideas as a person to whom we have in some measure forfeited our freedom.

The bounds of a man's knowledge are easily concealed, if he has but prudence.

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.

Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain.

A man's own heart must ever be given to gain that of another.

I fancy the character of a poet is in every country the same,--fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future; his conversation that of a man of sense, his actions those of a fool.

One man is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and the other with a wooden ladle.

A flattering painter, who made it his care To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.

Measures, not men, have always been my mark.

Fear guides more to their duty than gratitude; for one man who is virtuous from the love of virtue, from the obligation he thinks he lies under to the Giver of all, there are ten thousand who are good only from their apprehension of punishment.

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.

Wealth accumulates, and men decay.

Little things are great to little men.