Oliver Goldsmith

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

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

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!

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

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

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.

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

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.

Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.

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