Frasi di Oliver Goldsmith

„Fu già osservato mille volte, e debbo notarlo ancora una volta, che le ore che trascorriamo in prospettive di felicità, sono più piacevoli di quelle coronate dal godimento. Nel primo caso, ci prepariamo il piatto secondo il nostro appetito, nel secondo, la natura ce lo prepara lei.“

Utet, 1966, p. 192
Il vicario di Wakefield

„Le greggi che pascolano libere per la valle, | io non le condanno a morte: | mi è stato insegnato da Colui che ha pietà di me, | e ho imparato a essere misericordioso. || Ma dal lato verde del monte, | porto un banchetto innocente; | una bisaccia piena di erbe e di frutti, | e acqua di fonte.“

Utet, 1966, p. 62
Il vicario di Wakefield

„Quella virtù che ha sempre bisogno di essere custodita, non vale la pena che la si custodisca.“

Origine: Il vicario di Wakefield, p. 50

„Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first, best country ever is, at home.“

Utet, 1966, p. 36
Il vicario di Wakefield

„I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.“

Origine: The Traveller (1764), Line 73.

„For he who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day;
But he who is in battle slain
Can never rise and fight again.“

— Oliver Goldsmith, libro Il vicario di Wakefield

She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act I
Origine: The Vicar of Wakefield

„By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd;
The sports of children satisfy the child.“

The Art of Poetry on a New Plan (1761), vol. ii. p. 147.
The saying "he who fights and runs away may live to fight another day" dates at least as far back as Menander (ca. 341–290 B.C.), Gnomai Monostichoi, aphorism #45: ἀνήρ ὁ ϕɛύγων καὶ ράλίν μαχήɛṯαί (a man who flees will fight again). The Attic Nights (book 17, ch. 21) of Aulus Gellius (ca. 125–180 A.D.) indicates it was already widespread in the second century: "...the orator Demosthenes sought safety in flight from the battlefield, and when he was bitterly taunted with his flight, he jestingly replied in the well-known verse: The man who runs away will fight again".

Origine: The Traveller (1764), Line 153.

„Silence gives consent.“

„O Memory! thou fond deceiver.“

Act II.
The Good-Natured Man (1768)

„Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.“

Act I.
The Captivity, An Oratorio (1764)

„Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs.“

Variante: Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Origine: The Citizen of the World, Or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, Residing in London, to His Friends in the Country, by Dr. Goldsmith

„The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I read a book over I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one.“

— Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer

She Stoops to Conquer
She Stoops to Conquer (1771), Act III
Variante: Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies.