Oliver Goldsmith: Trending quotes

“I'll be with you in the squeezing of a lemon.”

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 8, The Hermit (Edwin and Angelina), st. 8.

She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act I

“Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,
Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame.
Their level life is but a mouldering fire,
Unquenched by want, unfanned by strong desire.”

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

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 219.

“It has been a thousand times observed, and I must observe it once more, that the hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowned with fruition.”

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 17, An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, st. 3.

“Bends to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past.”

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 10.

“On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
'Twas only that when he was off he was acting.”

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 109.

“And what is friendship but a name,
A charm that lulls to sleep,
A shade that follows wealth or fame,
And leaves the wretch to weep?”

Source: Retaliation (1774), Line 101.

“The sigh that rends thy constant heart
Shall break thy Edwin's too.”

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 8, The Hermit (Edwin and Angelina), st. 19.

“In arguing too, the parson owned his skill,
For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length, and thundering sound
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.”

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 8, The Hermit (Edwin and Angelina), st. 33.

“To the last moment of his breath
On hope the wretch relies;
And e'en the pang preceding death
Bids expectation rise.”

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 211.

“Who peppered the highest was surest to please.”

Act II.
The Captivity, An Oratorio (1764)

“Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt;
It's like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt.”

Source: Retaliation (1774), Line 112.

“The genteel thing is the genteel thing any time, if as be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.”

The Haunch of Venison (1776).

Oliver Goldsmith She Stoops to Conquer

She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act I

“They liked the book the better the more it made them cry.”

Oliver Goldsmith She Stoops to Conquer

She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act II

“Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.”

“Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main;
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niagara stuns with thundering sound.”

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 329.

“And, ev'n while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy.”

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 409.

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

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 263.

“To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art.”

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 17, An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, st. 8.