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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
Happens
Boat
Calculated
May
Table
Succeeds
Tables
Happily
Generally
Wit
Mackerel
Spread
Received
Poignancy
Succeed
Indifference
Gaming
Happen
Native
Addressed
Perfect
Drop
Jest

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Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
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Why was this heart of mine formed with so much sensibility! Or why not my fortune adapted to its impulses! Tenderness without a capacity of relieving only makes the man who feels it more wretched than the object which sues for assistance.
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Wealth accumulates, and men decay.
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This is that eloquence the ancients represented as lightning, bearing down every opposer this the power which has turned whole assemblies into astonishment, admiration and awe- - that is described by the torrent, the flame, and every other instance of irresistible impetuosity.
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All that philosophy can teach is to be stubborn or sullen under misfortunes.
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It is impossible to combat enthusiasm with reason for though it makes a show of resistance, it soon eludes the pressure, refers you to distinctions not to be understood, and feelings which it cannot explain. A man who would endeavor to fix an enthusiast by argument might as well attempt to spread quicksilver with his finger.
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In proportion as society refines, new books must ever become more necessary.
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There is unspeakable pleasure attending the life of a voluntary student.
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Age, that lessens the enjoyment of life, increases our desire of living
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Absence, like death, sets a seal on the image of those we love: we cannot realize the intervening changes which time may have effected.
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As boys should be educated with temperance, so the first greatest lesson that should be taught them is to admire frugality. It is by the exercise of this virtue alone they can ever expect to be useful members of society.
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The volume of Nature is the book of knowledge.
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And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, that one small head could carry all he knew.
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The greatest object in the universe, says a certain philosopher, is a good man struggling with adversity yet there is still a greater, which is the good man who comes to relieve it.
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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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Take a dollar from a thousand and it will be a thousand no more.
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Girls like to be played with and rumpled a little too sometimes.
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