Quotes from book
The Citizen of the World

The Citizen of the World
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith photo

“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.

Oliver Goldsmith photo

“The better sort here pretend to the utmost compassion for animals of every kind. To hear them speak, a stranger would be apt to imagine they could hardly hurt the gnat that stung them: they seem so tender and so full of pity, that one would take them for the harmless friends of the whole creation; the protectors of the meanest insect or reptile that was privileged with existence. And yet, would you believe it? I have seen the very men who have thus boasted of their tenderness, at the same time devouring the flesh of six different animals toasted up in a fricassee. Strange contrariety of conduct! they pity and they eat the objects of their compassion.”

Oliver Goldsmith book The Citizen of the World

The Citizen of the World (1760–1761), Letter XV https://books.google.it/books?id=cIELAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA44.

Similar authors

Oliver Goldsmith photo
Oliver Goldsmith134
Irish physician and writer 1728–1774
Paracelsus photo
Paracelsus24
Swiss physician and alchemist None
Richard Brinsley Sheridan photo
Richard Brinsley Sheridan58
Irish-British politician, playwright and writer None
John Locke photo
John Locke144
English philosopher and physician None
Jonathan Swift photo
Jonathan Swift141
Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet None
Edmund Burke photo
Edmund Burke270
Anglo-Irish statesman None
Friedrich Schiller photo
Friedrich Schiller111
German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright None
Nicolas Chamfort photo
Nicolas Chamfort54
French writer None
Daniel Defoe photo
Daniel Defoe43
English trader, writer and journalist None
Voltaire photo
Voltaire167
French writer, historian, and philosopher None