Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 51.
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“That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the sentinel.”
Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 5.
“Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first, best country ever is, at home.”
Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 73.
“I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.”
She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act I
Source: The Vicar of Wakefield
The Art of Poetry on a New Plan (1761), vol. ii. p. 147.
The saying "he who fights and runs away may live to fight another day" dates at least as far back as Menander (ca. 341–290 B.C.), Gnomai Monostichoi, aphorism #45: ἀνήρ ὁ ϕɛύγων καὶ ράλίν μαχήɛṯαί (a man who flees will fight again). The Attic Nights (book 17, ch. 21) of Aulus Gellius (ca. 125–180 A.D.) indicates it was already widespread in the second century: "...the orator Demosthenes sought safety in flight from the battlefield, and when he was bitterly taunted with his flight, he jestingly replied in the well-known verse: The man who runs away will fight again".
“By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd;
The sports of children satisfy the child.”
Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 153.
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
Variant: Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Source: The Citizen of the World, Or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, Residing in London, to His Friends in the Country, by Dr. Goldsmith
“Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs.”
She Stoops to Conquer
She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act III
Variant: Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies.
Source: The Citizen of the World, Or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, Residing in London, to His Friends in the Country, by Dr. Goldsmith
Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 29, Song, st. 1.
“To what fortuitous occurrence do we not owe every pleasure and convenience of our lives.”
Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 21.
“[To Mr. Johnson] If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.”
From James Boswell's Life of Johnson (1791), April 27, 1773.
“Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails,
And honor sinks where commerce long prevails.”
Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 91.