Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

The Citizen of the World

London

Printed for the Author

1760-1761, 1762

"We are not to be astonished, says Confucius, 'that the wise walk more slowly in their road to virtue, than fools in their passage to vice; since passion drags us along, while wisdom only points out the way.'"

From your accounts of Russia I learn, that this nation is again relaxing into pristine barbarity, that its great Emperor wanted a life of an hundred years more to bring about his vast design. A savage people may be resembled to their own forests; a few years are sufficient to clear away the obstructions to agriculture; but it requires many ere the ground acquires a proper degree of fertility; the Russians, attached to their ancient prejudices, again renew their hatred to strangers, and indulge every former brutal excess. So true it is, that the revolutions of wisdom are slow and difficult; the revolutions of folly or ambition precipitate and easy. We are not to be astonished, says Confucius*, that the wise walk more slowly in their road to virtue, than fools in their passage to vice; since passion drags us along, while wisdom only points out the way.
(I, p. 243)

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First published in the Public Ledger in 1760-1761. At least 25 entries in ESTC (1762, 1769, 1774, 1775 1776, 1782, 1785, 1790, 1792, 1793, 1794, 1797, 1799, 1800).



Text from The Citizen of the World: or Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, Residing in London, to His Friends in the East. (London: Printed for the Author; and sold by J. Newbery and W. Bristow; J. Leake and W. Frederick, Bath; B. Collins, Salisbury; and A. M. Smart and Co. Reading, 1762). <Link to ECCO-TCP>

07/25/2014