Oliver Goldsmith Quotes

My good friend, you are a citizen of Athens, a city which is very great and very famous for its wisdom and power - are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?

It is much easier to make good men wise, than to make bad men good.

When you see a good man, think of emulating him; when you see a bad man, examine your own heart.

Let us go home and cultivate our virtues.

To know what virtue is is not enough; we must endeavor to possess and to practice it, or in some other manner actually ourselves to become good.

Since the branch of philosophy on which we are at present engaged differs from the others in not being a subject of merely intellectual interest — I mean we are not concerned to know what goodness essentially is, but how we are to become good men, for this alone gives the study its practical value — we must apply our minds to the solution of the problems of conduct.

There is more value in a little study of humility and in a single act of it than in all the knowledge in the world.

A student of life considers the world a classroom.

James Remar is a student of life.

I say that virtue is really all about enjoying yourself, living fully; but of course it is far from obvious what living fully actually means.

In order to do good, a man must be good; and he will not be good except he have instruction by counsel and by example.

Respect for self is the beginning of cultivating virtue in men and women.

The superior man blames himself. The inferior man blames others.

We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.

The good man is the man who, no matter how morally unworthy he has been, is moving to become better.

The minute we stop learning, we begin death, the process of dying. We learn from each other with every action we perform. We are teaching goodness or evil every time we step out of the house and into the street.

I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good.

When we see persons of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see persons of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.

I take it to be from the greatest extremes, both in virtue and in vice, that the uniformly virtuous and reformed in life can derive the greatest and most salutary truths and impressions.

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 a vagabond.

I want to be a good person first and a good artist second.

I'm a good man, and I'm gonna become a better man.

Superior virtue must be the fruit of superior intelligence.

Some people are just naturally good. I always found ways to become good.