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.

Goldsmith contrasts two kinds of travel: purposeful self-cultivation versus restless wandering. Leaving home can be morally and intellectually justified when it aims at “mending” oneself—learning, refining character, gaining perspective—and, by extension, benefiting others through that improvement. But travel driven only by an unreflective “impulse of curiosity” becomes mere motion without direction, reducing the traveler to a “vagabond,” a figure associated with aimlessness and social marginality. The aphorism reflects an Enlightenment-era valuation of reason, self-discipline, and utility: experience is worthwhile when it is integrated into ethical growth and practical wisdom, not when it is consumed as novelty.