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Home  »  Familiar Quotations  »  4296 Oliver Goldsmith 1730?-1774 John Bartlett

John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

4296 Oliver Goldsmith 1730?-1774 John Bartlett

 
NUMBER:4296
AUTHOR:Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)
QUOTATION:Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,—
A breath can make them, as a breath has made; 1
But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroy’d, can never be supplied.
ATTRIBUTION:The Deserted Village. Line 51.
 
Note 1.
See Pope, Quotation 177.

C’est un verre qui luit,
Qu’un souffle peut détruire, et qu’un souffle a produit
(It is a shining glass, which a breath may destroy, and which a breath has produced).—De Caux (comparing the world to his hour-glass). [back]