Oliver Goldsmith Quotations | Page 2

It world be well had we more misers than we have among us.

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?

Popular glory is a perfect coquette; her lovers must toil, feel every inquietude, indulge every caprice, and perhaps at last be jilted into the bargain. True glory, on the other hand, resembles a woman of sense; her admirers must play no tricks. They feel no great anxiety, for they are sure in the end of being rewarded in proportion to their merit.

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?

Alas! the joys that fortune brings Are trifling, and decay, And those who prize the trifling things, More trifling still than they.

It has been remarked that almost every character which has excited either attention or pity has owed part of its success to merit, and part to a happy concurrence of circumstances in its favor. Had Caesar or Cromwell exchanged countries, the one might have been a sergeant and the other an exciseman.

We sometimes had those little rubs which Providence sends to enhance the value of its favors.

I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.

I always get the better when I argue alone.

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