Education Quote by Oliver Goldsmith

Goldsmith is side-eyeing the first age of content overload. His line looks politely observational, but it’s a cultural diagnosis with teeth: as the supply of writing explodes, readers don’t rise to the occasion, they recline. “Indolent” is doing a lot of work here. It’s not just laziness; it’s a drift toward convenience as a governing principle. Goldsmith frames it as “natural,” a word that pretends to be neutral while quietly insisting the trend is inevitable and therefore dangerous.

The subtext is economic as much as moral. More writers means more competition for attention, and competition rewards whatever reduces friction. If knowledge can be “attained” with “the greatest possible ease,” the market will favor summaries, digests, simplifications, and style over substance. Goldsmith’s syntax enacts the chain reaction: more writers -> lazier readers -> demand for easy knowledge. It reads like a logical proof, which is part of the rhetorical trick. By presenting a social critique as inevitability, he makes resistance feel like swimming against nature.

Context matters: the 18th century saw growing literacy, periodicals, pamphlets, and the commercializing of print. Goldsmith, a working writer, is both participant and critic, uneasy about a culture where writing multiplies faster than judgment. The barb isn’t only aimed at readers; it’s aimed at writers who will happily meet that “desire” by packaging complexity into something painless, and calling the result “knowledge.”