Oliver Goldsmith

_The more enormous our wealth, the more extensive our fears, all our possessions are paled up with new edicts every day, and hung round with gibbets to scare every invader.

Hope, like the gleaming taper__ light, adorns and cheers our way; and still, as darker grows the night, emits a brighter ray.

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

Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs.

The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I read a book over I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one.

I love everything that is old; old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.

A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation; therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future.

The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.

You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.

Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.

Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.

Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other.

All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, praised a little, and appreciated a little.

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.

Romance and novel paint beauty in colors more charming than nature, and describe a happiness that humans never taste. How deceptive and destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss!

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