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Oliver Goldsmith Quotes about Character

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It has been remarked that almost every character which has excited either attention or pity has owed part of its success to merit, and part to a happy concurrence of circumstances in its favor. Had Caesar or Cromwell

It has been remarked that almost every character which has excited either attention or pity has owed part of its success to merit, and part to a happy concurrence of circumstances in its favor. Had Caesar or Cromwell exchanged countries, the one might have been a sergeant and the other an exciseman.

Oliver Goldsmith
Country, Character, Favors
Oliver Goldsmith (1819). “Essays and poems, by Dr. Oliver Goldsmith. To which are prefixed, memoirs of the author”, p.3

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.

Oliver Goldsmith
Children, Husband, Character
Oliver Goldsmith (1833). “Miscellaneous works of Oliver Goldsmith: with a new life of the author”, p.180

When any one of our relations was found to be a person of a very bad character, a troublesome guest, or one we desired to get rid of, upon his leaving my house I ever took care to lend him a riding-coat, or a pair of boots, or sometimes a horse of small value, and I always had the satisfaction of finding he never came back to return them.

Oliver Goldsmith
Horse, Character, House
Oliver Goldsmith (1828). “The Vicar of Wakefield: A Tale ...”, p.7

I fancy the character of a poet is in every country the same,--fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future; his conversation that of a man of sense, his actions those of a fool.

Oliver Goldsmith
Country, Character, Men
Oliver Goldsmith (1835). “His Works”, p.241

The polite of every country seem to have but one character. A gentleman of Sweden differs but little, except in trifles, from one of any other country. It is among the vulgar we are to find those distinctions which characterize a people.

Oliver Goldsmith
Country, Character, People
Oliver Goldsmith (1834). “An inquiry into the present state of polite learning. The Bee. History of Cyrillo Padovano. Life of Dr. Parnell. Life of Lord Bolingbroke. Prefaces and introductions”, p.77

Whatever the skill of any country may be in the sciences, it is from its excellence in polite learning alone that it must expect a character from posterity.

Oliver Goldsmith
Country, Learning, Character
Oliver Goldsmith (1834). “An inquiry into the present state of polite learning. The Bee. History of Cyrillo Padovano. Life of Dr. Parnell. Life of Lord Bolingbroke. Prefaces and introductions”, p.11

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