Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmithwas 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 Manand She Stoops to Conquer. He is thought to have written the classic children's tale The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth10 November 1730
CountryIreland
death distance friendly
Death when unmasked shows us a friendly face and is a terror only at a distance.
life happiness needs
If frugality were established in the state, and if our expenses were laid out to meet needs rather than superfluities of life, there might be fewer wants, and even fewer pleasures, but infinitely more happiness.
happiness mind vain
Vain, very vain is my search to find; that happiness which only centers in the mind.
return giver rejected
Good counsel rejected returns to enrich the givers bosom.
love matrimony
It seemed to me pretty plain, that they had more of love than matrimony in them.
life race ability
Life has been compared to a race, but the allusion improves by observing, that the most swift are usually the least manageable and the most likely to stray from the course. Great abilities have always been less serviceable to the possessors than moderate ones.
laughter laughing mind
The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.
laughter malicious sneer
The malicious sneer is improperly called laughter.
simple greatness justice
There is a greatness in being generous, and there is only simple justice in satisfying creditors. Generosity is the part of the soul raised above the vulgar.
love faults one-love
All his faults are such that one loves him still the better for them.
ignorance riches wealth
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
lonely cheer loneliness
Turn, gentle Hermit of the Dale, And guide my lonely way To where yon taper cheers the vale With hospitable ray.
husband children character
She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice, and trains up the other to virtue, is a much greater character than the ladies described in romance, whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their quiver or their eyes.
bees amusement should
Like the bee, we should make our industry our amusement.