Oliver Goldsmith: Trending quotes (page 2)

“He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack,
For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.”

Oliver Goldsmith

Source: Retaliation (1774), Line 107.

“The premises being thus settled, I proceed to observe that the concatenation of self-existence, proceeding in a reciprocal duplicate ratio, naturally produces a problematical dialogism, which in some measure proves that the essence of spirituality may be referred to the second predicable.”

Oliver Goldsmith book The Vicar of Wakefield

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 7.

Nature

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

Oliver Goldsmith

Source: Retaliation (1774), Line 93.

“That strain once more; it bids remembrance rise.”

Oliver Goldsmith

Act I.
The Captivity, An Oratorio (1764)

“Even children followed with endearing wile,
And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile.”

Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 183.

Children , Smile

“I…chose a wife, as she did her wedding gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well.”

Oliver Goldsmith book The Vicar of Wakefield

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 1.

Wedding

“The watchdog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.”

Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 121.

“Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe,
That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so.”

Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 413.

“There is no arguing with Johnson: for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it.”

Oliver Goldsmith

From James Boswell's Life of Johnson (1791), October 26, 1769.

“They please, are pleased, they give to get esteem,
Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.”

Oliver Goldsmith

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 265.

“So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar
But bind him to his native mountains more.”

Oliver Goldsmith

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 217.

Mountain

“In my time, the follies of the town crept slowly among us, but now they travel faster than a stagecoach.”

Oliver Goldsmith She Stoops to Conquer

She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act I

Travel , Time

“But winter lingering chills the lap of May.”

Oliver Goldsmith

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 172.

Winter

“The land of scholars and the nurse of arms.”

Oliver Goldsmith

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 356.

“Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine!”

Oliver Goldsmith

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 50.

World

“Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.”

Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 344.

“They would talk of nothing but high life, and high-lived company, with other fashionable topics, such as pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses.”

Oliver Goldsmith book The Vicar of Wakefield

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 9.

Life , Music , Fashion

“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 book The Vicar of Wakefield

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 17, An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, st. 4.

Dogs

“As a wit, if not first, in the very first line.”

Oliver Goldsmith

Source: Retaliation (1774), Line 96.

“Men may be very learned, and yet very miserable; it is easy to be a deep geometrician, or a sublime astronomer, but very difficult to be a good man. I esteem, therefore, the traveller who instructs the heart, but despise him who only indulges the imagination. 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 only a vagabond.”

Oliver Goldsmith book The Citizen of the World

The Citizen of the World (1760–1761), Letter VII.

Men , Travel , Home , Imagination