The Vicar of Wakefield Quotes

“I love everything that is old; old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“I armed her against the censures of the world, shewed her that books were sweet unreproaching companions to the miserable, and that if they could not bring us to enjoy life, they would at least teach us to endure it.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“law grinds the poor, rich men rule the law”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“As the reputation of books is raised not by their freedom from defect, but the greatness of their beauties, so should that of men be prized not for their exemption from fault, but the size of those virtues they are possessed of.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“…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.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“What we place most hopes upon, generally proves most fatal.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“The nakedness of the indignant world may be cloathed from the trimmings of the vain.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“I have known many of those pretended champions for liberty in my time, yet do I not remember one that was not in his heart and in his family a tyrant.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“We are not to judge the feelings of others by what we might feel in their place.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“The beast retires to its shelter, and the bird flies to its nest; but the helpless man can only find refuge in his fellow creature.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“My friends, my children, and fellow sufferers, when I reflect on the
distribution of good and evil here below, I find that much has been
given man to enjoy, yet still more to suffer. Though we should examine
the whole world, we shall not find one man so happy as to have nothing
left to wish for; but we daily see thousands who by suicide shew us they
have nothing left to hope. In this life then it appears that we cannot
be entirely blest; but yet we may be completely miserable!”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“Mortifications are often more painful than real calamities.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the sentinel.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“the laws govern the poor, and the rich govern the law”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“At this he laughed, and so did we: the jests of the rich are ever successful.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“When lovely woman stoops to folly, And finds too late that men betray, What charm can sooth her melancholy, What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover, To hide her shame from every eye, To give repentance to her lover, And wring his bosom—is to die.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“We are not to judge of the feelings of others by what we might feel if in their place. However dark the habitation of the mole to our eyes, yet the animal itself finds the apartment sufficiently lightsome.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“Offences are easily pardoned where there is love at the bottom.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“Thus, my children, after men have travelled through a few stages in vice, shame forsakes them, and returns back to wait upon the few virtues they have still remaining.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“Now, Sir, for my own part, as I naturally hate the face of a tyrant, the farther off he is removed from me, the better pleased am I. The generality of mankind also are of my way of thinking, and have unanimously created one king, whose election at once diminishes the number of tyrants, and puts tyranny at the greatest distance from the greatest number of people.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“The pain which conscience gives the man who has already done wrong is soon got over. Conscience is a coward; and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent, it seldom has justice enough to accuse.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“Both wit and understanding are trifles, without integrity; it is that which gives value to every character. The ignorant peasant without fault is greater than the philosopher with many; for what is genius or courage without an heart?”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“Man little knows what calamities are beyond his patience to bear, till he tries them: as in ascending the heights of ambition, which look bright from below, every step we rise shows us some new and gloomy prospects of hidden disappointment: so in our descent from the summits of pleasure, though the vale of misery below may appear at first dark and gloomy, yet the busy mind, still attentive to its own amusement, finds, as we descend, something to flatter and to please. Still as we approach, the darkest objects appear to brighten, and the mental eye becomes adapted to its gloomy situation.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“Now, therefore, I began to associate with none but disappointed authors like myself, who praised, deplored, and despised each other. The satisfaction we found in every celebrated writer's attempts was inversely as their merits. My unfortunate paradoxes had entirely dried up that source of comfort. I could neither read nor write with satisfaction; for excellence in another was my aversion, and writing was my trade.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“Premature consolation is but the remembrancer of sorrow.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“Those relations which describe the tricks and vices only of mankind, by increasing our suspicion in life, retard our success. The traveller that distrusts every person he meets, and turns back upon the appearance of every man that looks like a robber, seldom arrives in time at his journey’s end.

‘Indeed I think from my own experience, that the knowing one is the silliest fellow under the sun. I was thought cunning from my very childhood; when but seven years old the ladies would say that I was a perfect little man; at fourteen I knew the world, cocked my hat, and loved the ladies; at twenty, though I was perfectly honest, yet every one thought me so cunning, that not one would trust me. Thus I was at last obliged to turn sharper in my own defence, and have lived ever since, my head throbbing with schemes to deceive, and my heart palpitating with fears of detection.

‘I used often to laugh at your honest simple neighbour Flamborough, and one way or another generally cheated him once a year. Yet still the honest man went forward without suspicion, and grew rich, while I still continued tricksy and cunning, and was poor, without the consolation of being honest.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“However, when any one of our relations was found to be a person of 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 an horse of small value, and I always had the satisfaction of finding he never came back to return them. By this the house was cleared of such as we did not like; but never was the family of Wakefield known to turn the traveller or the poor dependent out of doors.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield