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Wit generally succeeds more from being happily addressed than from its native poignancy. A jest, calculated to spread at a gaming-table, may be received with, perfect indifference should it happen to drop in a mackerel-boat.

Oliver Goldsmith

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Oliver Goldsmith
Age: 43 †
Born: 1730
Born: November 10
Died: 1774
Died: April 4
Dramaturge
Essayist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Physician
Physician Writer
Playwright
Poet
Polygraph
Theatrical Producer
Writer
Elphin
County Roscommon
Oliver Goldsmit
Doctor Goldsmith
Oliverio Goldsmith
Oliverus Goldsmith
Olver Goldsmith
Olivier Goldsmith
Dottor Golssmith
Tom Telescope
Solomon Winlove
James Willington
Author of the Vicar of Wakefield
Dr Goldsmith
Inspired Idiot
Succeed
Indifference
Gaming
Happen
Native
Addressed
Perfect
Drop
Jest
Happens
Boat
Calculated
May
Table
Succeeds
Tables
Happily
Generally
Wit
Mackerel
Spread
Received
Poignancy

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Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
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Vain, very vain, my weary search to find That bliss which only centers in the mind.
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Processions, cavalcades, and all that fund of gay frippery, furnished out by tailors, barbers, and tire-women, mechanically influence the mind into veneration an emperor in his nightcap would not meet with half the respect of an emperor with a crown.
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A volcano may be considered as a cannon of immense size.
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Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other.
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Even children follow'd with endearing wile, And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile.
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We seldom speak of the virtue which we have, but much oftener of that which we lack.
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Whenever you see a gaming table be sure to know fortune is not there. Rather she is always in the company of industry.
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I have found by experience that they who have spent all their lives in cities contract not only an effeminacy of habit, but of thinking.
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Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, And the puff a dunce, he mistook it for fame Till his relish grown callous, almost to displease, Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please.
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To be poor, and to seem poor, is a certain method never to rise.
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There are but few talents requisite to become a popular preacher for the people are easily pleased if they perceive any endeavors in the orator to please them. The meanest qualifications will work this effect if the preacher sincerely sets about it.
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It world be well had we more misers than we have among us.
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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.
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Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe, That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so.
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There is yet a silent agony in which the mind appears to disdain all external help, and broods over its distresses with gloomy reserve. This is the most dangerous state of mind accidents or friendships may lessen the louder kinds of grief, but all remedies for this must be had from within, and there despair too often finds the most deadly enemy.
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All that philosophy can teach is to be stubborn or sullen under misfortunes.
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Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.
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Amid thy desert-walks the lapwing flies, And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.
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I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing.
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