Oliver Goldsmith

Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.

I was ever of the opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single, and only talked of population.

Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long.

Girls like to be played with, and rumpled a little too, sometimes.

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

The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.

Be not affronted at a joke. If one throw salt at thee, thou wilt receive no harm, unless thou art raw.

Surely the best way to meet the enemy is head on in the field and not wait till they plunder our very homes.

Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.

Tenderness is a virtue.

The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.

Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same.

With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.

There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.

When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy, what art can wash her guilt away?

Could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet.

Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.

The jests of the rich are ever successful.

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 a vagabond.

As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent; whence must necessarily arise a desire of attaining knowledge with the greatest possible ease.

If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.

Where wealth accumulates, men decay.

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

Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law.

Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.