Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) 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 also wrote An History of the Earth and Animated Nature. He is thought to have written the classic children’s tale The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, the source of the phrase “goody two-shoes”.
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Praise in the beginning is agreeable enough, and we receive it as a favor; but when it comes in great quantities, we regard it only as a debt, which nothing but our merit could extort.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Praise
Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Perseverance, Endurance, Resolve
Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies.
—Oliver Goldsmith
The jests of the rich are ever successful.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Wealth, Riches
Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Perseverance, Resilience, Gratitude, Failure, Endurance, Resolve, Memory
A traveler of taste will notice that the wise are polite all over the world, but the fool only at home.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Manners
The united voice of millions cannot lend the smallest foundation to falsehood.
—Oliver Goldsmith
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.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Future, Realistic Expectations, Hope
Philosophy can add to our happiness in no other manner but by diminishing our misery; it should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of. Happy were we all born philosophers; all born with a talent of thus dissipating our own cares by spreading them upon all mankind.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Philosophy, Gratitude, Blessings, Appreciation
People seldom improve, when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.
—Oliver Goldsmith
That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the sentinel.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Virtue
Hope, like the gleaming taper’s light, adorns and cheers our way; and still, as darker grows the night, emits a brighter ray.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Topics: Hope
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