110+ Oliver Goldsmith Quotes On Education, Art And World

Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish poet, novelist, playwright, and essayist. He is best known for his poem The Deserted Village and his novel The Vicar of Wakefield. Goldsmith's works often address social issues and examine the lives of the poor and the struggles of rural communities in 18th century Ireland. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Oliver Goldsmith on education, life, art.

Top 10 Oliver Goldsmith Quotes

1. Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.
2. Blame where you must, be candid where you can, And be each critic the Good-natured Man.
3. To make a fine gentleman, several trades are required, but chiefly a barber.
4. One writer, for instance, excels at a plan or a title page, another works away at the body of the book, and a third is a dab at an index.
5. People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.
6. Ridicule has always been the enemy of enthusiasm, and the only worthy opponent to ridicule is success.
7. A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is a vagabond.
8. Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same.
9. Vain, very vain is my search to find; that happiness which only centers in the mind.
10. Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.

Oliver Goldsmith Image Quotes

People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy. — Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith Short Quotes

• People seldom improve when they have no other model, but themselves to copy after.
• Wealth accumulates, and men decay.
• Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies.
• Little things are great to little men.
• Error is always talkative.
• Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law.
• Good counsel rejected returns to enrich the givers bosom.
• In all the silent manliness of grief.
• Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.
• If one wishes to become rich they must appear rich.

Oliver Goldsmith Quotes About Education

As boys should be educated with temperance, so the first greatest lesson that should be taught them is to admire frugality. It is by the exercise of this virtue alone they can ever expect to be useful members of society. — Oliver Goldsmith

A boy will learn more true wisdom in a public school in a year than by a private education in five. It is not from masters, but from their equals, that youth learn a knowledge of the world. — Oliver Goldsmith

As few subjects are more interesting to society, so few have been more frequently written upon than the education of youth. — Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith Quotes About Life

Life has been compared to a race, but the allusion improves by observing, that the most swift are usually the least manageable and the most likely to stray from the course. Great abilities have always been less serviceable to the possessors than moderate ones. — Oliver Goldsmith

As for murmurs, mother, we grumble a little now and then, to be sure; but there's no love lost between us. — Oliver Goldsmith

The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form. — Oliver Goldsmith

People seek within a short span of life to satisfy a thousand desires, each of which is insatiable. — Oliver Goldsmith

Age, that lessens the enjoyment of life, increases our desire of living — Oliver Goldsmith

The life of man is a journey; a journey that must be traveled, however bad the roads or the accommodation. — Oliver Goldsmith

The youth who follows his appetites too soon seizes the cup, before it has received its best ingredients, and by anticipating his pleasures, robs the remaining parts of life of their share, so that his eagerness only produces manhood of imbecility and an age of pain. — Oliver Goldsmith

The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love. — Oliver Goldsmith

You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips. — Oliver Goldsmith

If frugality were established in the state, and if our expenses were laid out to meet needs rather than superfluities of life, there might be fewer wants, and even fewer pleasures, but infinitely more happiness. — Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith Quotes About Art

Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity; it is that which gives value to every character. The ignorant peasant, without fault, is greater than the philosopher with many; for what is genius or courage without a heart? — Oliver Goldsmith

When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy, what art can wash her guilt away? — Oliver Goldsmith

To me more dear, congenial to my heart, One native charm, than all the gloss of art. — Oliver Goldsmith

And e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart distrusting asks if this be joy. — Oliver Goldsmith

And as a bird each fond endearment tries To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies, He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay, Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way. — Oliver Goldsmith

For the first time, the best may err, art may persuade, and novelty spread out its charms. The first fault is the child of simplicity; but every other the offspring of guilt. — Oliver Goldsmith

It is not easy to recover an art when once lost. — Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith Quotes About World

The ingratitude of the world can never deprive us of the conscious happiness of having acted with humanity ourselves. — Oliver Goldsmith

No one but a fool would measure their satisfaction by what the world thinks of it. — Oliver Goldsmith

The nakedness of the indigent world may be clothed from the trimmings of the vain. — Oliver Goldsmith

Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better. — Oliver Goldsmith

A traveler of taste will notice that the wise are polite all over the world, but the fool only at home. — Oliver Goldsmith

The world is like a vast sea: mankind like a vessel sailing on its tempestuous bosom. ... [T]he sciences serve us for oars. — Oliver Goldsmith

While Resignation gently slopes away, And all his prospects brightening to the last, His heaven commences ere the world be past. — Oliver Goldsmith

There is nothing magnanimous in bearing misfortunes with fortitude, when the whole world is looking on.... He who, without friends to encourage or even without hope to alleviate his misfortunes, can behave with tranquility and indifference, is truly great. — Oliver Goldsmith

The person whose clothes are extremely fine I am too apt to consider as not being possessed of any superiority of fortune, but resembling those Indians who are found to wear all the gold they have in the world in a bob at the nose. — Oliver Goldsmith

Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine! — Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith Quotes About Love

I learn several great truths; as that it is impossible to see into the ways of futurity, that punishment always attends the villain, that love is the fond soother of the human breast. — Oliver Goldsmith

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

It seemed to me pretty plain, that they had more of love than matrimony in them. — Oliver Goldsmith

So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar, But bind him to his native mountains more. — 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. — Oliver Goldsmith

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

Our pleasures are short, and can only charm at intervals; love is a method of protraction our greatest pleasure. — Oliver Goldsmith

I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines; and, I believe, Dorothy, you'll own I have been pretty fond of an old wife. — Oliver Goldsmith

All his faults are such that one loves him still the better for them. — Oliver Goldsmith

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. — Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith Quotes About Virtue

Tenderness is a virtue. — Oliver Goldsmith

Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues. — Oliver Goldsmith

The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue. — Oliver Goldsmith

Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began. Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And even his failings lean'd to Virtue's side. — Oliver Goldsmith

She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice, and trains up the other to virtue, is a much greater character than the ladies described in romance, whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their quiver or their eyes. — Oliver Goldsmith

While selfishness joins hands with no one of the virtues, benevolence is allied to them all. — Oliver Goldsmith

That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the sentinel. — Oliver Goldsmith

Some faults are so closely allied to qualities that it is difficult to weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue. — Oliver Goldsmith

Want of prudence is too frequently the want of virtue. — Oliver Goldsmith

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

Oliver Goldsmith Quotes About Friends

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. — Oliver Goldsmith

A kind and gentle heart he had, To comfort friends and foes; The naked every day he clad When he put on his clothes. — Oliver Goldsmith

Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend, And round his dwelling guardian saints attend. — Oliver Goldsmith

He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, for he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back. — Oliver Goldsmith

To aim at excellence, our reputation, and friends, and all must be ventured; to aim at the average we run no risk and provide little service. — Oliver Goldsmith

Death when unmasked shows us a friendly face and is a terror only at a distance. — Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith Famous Quotes And Sayings

Fine declamation does not consist in flowery periods, delicate allusions of musical cadences, but in a plain, open, loose style, where the periods are long and obvious, where the same thought is often exhibited in several points of view. — Oliver Goldsmith

People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy. — Oliver Goldsmith

The ambitious are forever followed by adulation for they receive the most pleasure from flattery. — Oliver Goldsmith

Villainy, when detected, never gives up, but boldly adds impudence to imposture. — Oliver Goldsmith

Hope, like the gleaming taper's light, Adorns and cheers our way; And still, as darker grows the night, Emits a brighter ray. — Oliver Goldsmith

If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales. — Oliver Goldsmith

The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them. — Oliver Goldsmith

The heart of every man lies open to the shafts of correction if the archer can take proper aim. — Oliver Goldsmith

Silence is become his mother tongue. — Oliver Goldsmith

Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog And in that town a dog was found, As many dogs there be, Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, And curs of low degree. — Oliver Goldsmith

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. — Oliver Goldsmith

Aromatic plants bestowno spicy fragrance while they grow;but crush'd or trodden to the ground,diffuse their balmy sweets around. — Oliver Goldsmith

The mind is ever ingenious in making its own distress. — Oliver Goldsmith

Processions, cavalcades, and all that fund of gay frippery, furnished out by tailors, barbers, and tire-women, mechanically influence the mind into veneration; an emperor in his nightcap would not meet with half the respect of an emperor with a crown. — Oliver Goldsmith

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it. — Oliver Goldsmith

To what fortuitous occurrence do we not owe every pleasure and convenience of our lives. — Oliver Goldsmith

Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning. — Oliver Goldsmith

Nobody with me at sea but myself. — Oliver Goldsmith

Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain. — Oliver Goldsmith

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

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. — Oliver Goldsmith

What if in Scotland's wilds we viel'd our head, Where tempests whistle round the sordid bed; Where the rug's two-fold use we might display, By night a blanket, and a plaid by day. — Oliver Goldsmith

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

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

A night-cap deck'd his brows instead of bay,- A cap by night, a stocking all the day. — Oliver Goldsmith

Our chief comforts often produce our greatest anxieties, and the increase in our possessions is but an inlet to new disquietudes. — Oliver Goldsmith

The polite of every country seem to have but one character. A gentleman of Sweden differs but little, except in trifles, from one of any other country. It is among the vulgar we are to find those distinctions which characterize a people. — Oliver Goldsmith

Aspiring beggary is wretchedness itself. — Oliver Goldsmith

The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind. — Oliver Goldsmith

Man seems the only growth that dwindles here. — Oliver Goldsmith

O Luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree! — Oliver Goldsmith

I hate the French because they are all slaves and wear wooden shoes. — Oliver Goldsmith

An Englishman fears contempt more than death. — Oliver Goldsmith

Let observation with observant view, Observe mankind from China to Peru. — Oliver Goldsmith

Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, I see the lords of humankind pass by. — Oliver Goldsmith

He who fights and runs away May live to fight another day. — Oliver Goldsmith

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. — Oliver Goldsmith

Unequal combinations are always disadvantageous to the weaker side. — Oliver Goldsmith

Surely the best way to meet the enemy is head on in the field and not wait till they plunder our very homes. — Oliver Goldsmith

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

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

The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition. — Oliver Goldsmith

Persecution is a tribute the great must always pay for preeminence. — Oliver Goldsmith

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

The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself. — Oliver Goldsmith

Our Garrick 's a salad; for in him we see Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree! — Oliver Goldsmith

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! — Oliver Goldsmith

Fortune is ever seen accompanying industry. — Oliver Goldsmith

As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent; whence must necessarily arise a desire of attaining knowledge with the greatest possible ease. — Oliver Goldsmith

When a person has no need to borrow they find multitudes willing to lend. — Oliver Goldsmith

With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive. — Oliver Goldsmith

Every acknowledgment of gratitude is a circumstance of humiliation; and some are found to submit to frequent mortifications of this kind, proclaiming what obligations they owe, merely because they think it in some measure cancels the debt. — Oliver Goldsmith

Whichever way we look the prospect is disagreeable. Behind, we have left pleasures we shall never enjoy, and therefore regret; and before, we see pleasures which we languish to possess, and are consequently uneasy till we possess them. — Oliver Goldsmith

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

Girls like to be played with, and rumpled a little too, sometimes. — Oliver Goldsmith

An emperor in his nightcap will not meet with half the respect of an emperor with a crown. — Oliver Goldsmith

I have found by experience that they who have spent all their lives in cities contract not only an effeminacy of habit, but of thinking. — Oliver Goldsmith

Politeness is the result of good sense and good nature. — Oliver Goldsmith

Where wealth accumulates, men decay. — Oliver Goldsmith

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it; for error is always talkative. — Oliver Goldsmith

Fear guides more than gratitude. — Oliver Goldsmith

True wisdom consists of tracing effects to their causes. — Oliver Goldsmith

Whatever mitigates the woes, or increases the happiness of others, is a just criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it, is a criterion of iniquity. — Oliver Goldsmith

Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind. — Oliver Goldsmith

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. — Oliver Goldsmith

In a polite age almost every person becomes a reader, and receives more instruction from the Press than the Pulpit. — Oliver Goldsmith

When any one of our relations was found to be a person of a very bad character, a troublesome guest, or one we desired to get rid of, upon his leaving my house I ever took care to lend him a riding-coat, or a pair of boots, or sometimes a horse of small value, and I always had the satisfaction of finding he never came back to return them. — Oliver Goldsmith

Life Lessons by Oliver Goldsmith

1. Oliver Goldsmith taught that life is precious and should be lived to the fullest, and that it is important to appreciate the beauty of the world around us.
2. He also emphasized the importance of kindness and compassion, and how these qualities can help us to build meaningful relationships with others.
3. Finally, Goldsmith encouraged us to be humble and to accept our flaws, as this is the only way to truly grow and develop as individuals.