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Oliver Goldsmith Quotes
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Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish novelist, playwright and poet, who is best known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer . He is thought to have written the classic children's tale The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes . Wikipedia  

✵ 10. November 1728 – 4. April 1774
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Oliver Goldsmith: 134 quotes12 likes

Oliver Goldsmith Quotes

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

Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 253.

“How happy he who crowns in shades like these,
A youth of labour with an age of ease.”

Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 99.

“Turn, gentle Hermit of the Dale,
And guide my lonely way
To where yon taper cheers the vale
With hospitable ray.”

Oliver Goldsmith book The Vicar of Wakefield

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 8, The Hermit (Edwin and Angelina), st. 1.

“As aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance while they grow;
But crush'd or trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmy sweets around.”

Oliver Goldsmith

Act I.
The Captivity, An Oratorio (1764)

“For just experience tells; in every soil,
That those that think must govern those that toil.”

Oliver Goldsmith

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 371.

“The first blow is half the battle.”

Oliver Goldsmith She Stoops to Conquer

She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act II

“When he talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff,
He shifted his trumpet and only took snuff.”

Oliver Goldsmith

Source: Retaliation (1774), Line 145.

“Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze,
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore,
Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore.”

Oliver Goldsmith

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 251.

“The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnished clock that clicked behind the door;
The chest contrived a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.”

Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 227.

“Travellers, George, must pay in all places: the only difference is, that in good inns, you pay dearly for your luxuries, and in bad inns you are fleeced and starved.”

Oliver Goldsmith She Stoops to Conquer

She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act II

“Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.”

Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 179.

“Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centers in the mind.”

Oliver Goldsmith

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 423.

“The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose.”

Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 232.

“You may all go to pot.”

Oliver Goldsmith

Verses in reply to an invitation to dine at Dr. Baker's.