"These little things are great to little man."

Oliver Goldsmith Literature See all quotes by Oliver Goldsmith →

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“As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent.”

“And learn the luxury of doing good.”

“The best-humour'd man, with the worst-humour'd Muse.”

“I...chose a wife, as she did her wedding gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well.”

“But winter lingering chills the lap of May.”

“Men may be very learned, and yet very miserable; it is easy to be a deep geometrician, or a sublime astronomer, but very difficult to be a good man. I esteem, therefore, the traveller who instructs the heart, but despise him who only indulges the imagination. 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 only a vagabond.”

Resonant Thoughts

"So there is the first message for all of you as potential inventors. Take your own ideas a little further before giving them up. Keep your experience like a sort of treasure house that you can draw on…"

— Eric Laithwaite

Technology1921–1997

#wisdom

"Dayton shook the leadership elite of post-Cold War Europe. The Europeans were grateful to the United States for the leading the effort that finally ended the war in Bosnia, but some European officials…"

— Richard Holbrooke

Politics1941–2010

#time

"… my Latin and German propositions. You wonder I did not tell you of them. But I did not wish to have them widely circulated. I only intended submitting them to a few learned men for examination, and …"

— Martin Luther

Religion1906–1985

#knowledge

"The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all things considere…"

— Dick Cheney

Politics1941–2025

#friendship