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
fashion ignorance order
A French woman is a perfect architect in dress: she never, with Gothic ignorance, mixes the orders; she never tricks out a snobby Doric shape with Corinthian finery; or, to speak without metaphor, she conforms to general fashion only when it happens not to be repugnant to private beauty.
gay mind crowns
Processions, cavalcades, and all that fund of gay frippery, furnished out by tailors, barbers, and tire-women, mechanically influence the mind into veneration; an emperor in his nightcap would not meet with half the respect of an emperor with a crown.
men mouths spoons
One man is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and the other with a wooden ladle.
exercise boys lessons
As boys should be educated with temperance, so the first greatest lesson that should be taught them is to admire frugality. It is by the exercise of this virtue alone they can ever expect to be useful members of society.
eye home sight
The Europeans are themselves blind who describe fortune without sight. No first-rate beauty ever had finer eyes, or saw more clearly. They who have no other trade but seeking their fortune need never hope to find her; coquette-like, she flies from her close pursuers, and at last fixes on the plodding mechanic who stays at home and minds his business.
fool praying
And fools who came to scoff remain'd to pray.
wish age pleasure
Is it that Nature, attentive to the preservation of mankind, increases our wishes to live, while she lessens our enjoyments, and as she robs the senses of every pleasure, equips imag-ination in the spoil?
law chinese rewards
The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.
speak virtue
We seldom speak of the virtue which we have, but much oftener of that which we lack.
volcanoes size may
A volcano may be considered as a cannon of immense size.
whales littles fishes
If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.
hope expectations lasts
To the last moment of his breath, On hope the wretch relies; And even the pang preceding death Bids expectation rise.
winter may lap
But winter lingering chills the lap of May.
pleasure convenience fortuitous
To what fortuitous occurrence do we not owe every pleasure and convenience of our lives.