Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"The Prince now found that he had all along been under the power of enchantment, that his passion for the white mouse was entirely fictitious, and not the genuine complexion of his soul; he now saw that his earnestness after mice was an illiberal amusement, and much more becoming a ratcatcher tha...

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"A mind thus sunk for a while below its natural standard, is qualified for stronger flights, as those first retire who would spring forward with greater vigour"

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1764

"All evils here contaminate the mind, / That opulence departed leaves behind."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1764

"For, as refinement stops, from sire to son / Unaltered, unimproved the manners run; / And love's and friendship's finely pointed dart / Fall blunted from each indurated heart."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1766

"His mind had leaned upon their adulation, and that support taken away, he could find no pleasure in the applause of his heart, which he had never learnt to reverence."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1766

"The blossom opening to the day, / The dews of heaven refin'd, / Could nought of purity display, / To emulate his mind."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1766

"We talked of the pleasures of temperance, and of the sun-shine in the mind unpolluted with guilt."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1766

"The tumult in her mind seemed not yet abated; she said twenty giddy things that looked like joy, and then laughed out loud at her own want of meaning."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1766

"I found all my passions alarmed at this new degrading proposal; for though the mind may often be calm under great injuries, little villainy can at any time get within the soul, and sting it into rage."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1770

"Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play, / The soul adopts and owns their firstborn sway; / Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, / Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)