Oliver Goldsmith Quotes page 2

“Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain.”

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 161.

“No flocks that range the valley free
To slaughter I condemn;
Taught by that Power that pities me,
I learn to pity them:
But from the mountain’s grassy side
A guiltless feast I bring;
A scrip with herbs and fruits supplied,
And water from the spring.”

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 1.

“The king himself has followed her
When she has walk'd before.”

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 8, The Hermit (Edwin and Angelina), st. 6-7.

“Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain,
With grammar, and nonsense, and learning;
Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,
Gives genus a better discerning.”

Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize, st. 5.
The Bee (1759)

“Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view.”

She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act I

“This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey.”

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 26.

“Baw! Damme, but I'll fight you both, one after the other!
With baskets.”

Act I.
The Good-Natured Man (1768)

“Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.”

She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act IV

“Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see,
My heart untraveled fondly turns to thee;
Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.”

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 13.

“Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.”

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 7.

“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.

“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.”

She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act I

“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).

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

She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act I

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

She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act II

“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.