William Shenstone Quotes & Sayings

A statue in a garden is to be considered as one part of a scene or landscape. — William Shenstone

The difference there is betwixt honor and honesty seems to be chiefly the motive; the mere honest man does that from duty which the man of honor does for the sake of character. — William Shenstone

Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round, Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found The warmest welcome at an inn. — William Shenstone

His knowledge of books had in some degree diminished his knowledge of the world. — William Shenstone

Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true. — William Shenstone

A rich dress adds but little to the beauty of a person. It may possibly create a deference, but that is rather an enemy to love. — William Shenstone

Many persons, when exalted, assume an insolent humility, who behaved before with an insolent haughtiness. — William Shenstone

We may daily discover crowds acquire sufficient wealth to buy gentility, but very few that possess the virtues which ennoble human nature, and (in the best sense of the word) constitute a gentleman. — William Shenstone

Health is beauty, and the most perfect health is the most perfect beauty. — William Shenstone

May I always have a heart superior, with economy suitable, to my fortune. — William Shenstone

The lines of poetry, the period of prose, and even the texts of Scripture most frequently recollected and quoted, are those which are felt to be preeminently musical. — William Shenstone

Long sentences in a short composition are like large rooms in a little house. — William Shenstone

Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent. — William Shenstone

I have been formerly so silly as to hope that every servant I had might be made a friend; I am now convinced that the nature of servitude generally bears a contrary tendency. People's characters are to be chiefly collected from their education and place in life; birth itself does but little. — William Shenstone

It is true there is nothing displays a genius, I mean a quickness of genius, more than a dispute; as two diamonds, encountering, contribute to each other's luster. But perhaps the odds is much against the man of taste in this particular. — William Shenstone

I trimmed my lamp, consumed the midnight oil. — William Shenstone

Oft has good nature been the fool's defence, And honest meaning gilded want of sense. — William Shenstone

Second thoughts oftentimes are the very worst of all thoughts. — William Shenstone

I hate a style, as I do a garden, that is wholly flat and regular; that slides along like an eel, and never rises to what one can call an inequality. — William Shenstone

A man has generally the good or ill qualities, which he attributes to mankind. — William Shenstone

The lowest people are generally the first to find fault with show or equipage; especially that of a person lately emerged from his obscurity. They never once consider that he is breaking the ice for themselves. — William Shenstone

Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. — William Shenstone

To thee, fair Freedom! I retire From flattery, cards, and dice, and din: Nor art thou found in mansions higher Than the low cot, or humble inn. — William Shenstone

Immoderate assurance is perfect licentiousness. — William Shenstone

The eye must be easy, before it can be pleased. — William Shenstone

Zealous men are ever displaying to you the strength of their belief, while judicious men are showing you the grounds of it. — William Shenstone

A man of remarkable genius may afford to pass by a piece of wit, if it happen to border on abuse. A little genius is obliged to catch at every witticism indiscriminately. — William Shenstone

Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture, as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle-sized are alone entangled in it. — William Shenstone

Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world. — William Shenstone

To one who said, "I do not believe that there is an honest man in the world," another replied, "It is impossible that any one man should know all the world, but quite possible that one may know himself." — William Shenstone

A wound in the friendship of young persons, as in the bark of young trees, may be so grown over as to leave no scar. The case is very different in regard to old persons and old timber. The reason of this may be accountable from the decline of the social passions, and the prevalence of spleen, suspicion, and rancor towards the latter part of life. — William Shenstone

What leads to unhappiness, is making pleasure the chief aim. — William Shenstone

Harmony of period and melody of style have greater weight than is generally imagined in the judgment we pass upon writing and writers. As a proof of this, let us reflect what texts of scripture, what lines in poetry, or what periods we most remember and quote, either in verse or prose, and we shall find them to be only musical ones. — William Shenstone

I know not whether increasing years do not cause us to esteem fewer people and to bear with more. — William Shenstone

It seems idle to rail at ambition merely because it is a boundless passion; or rather is not this circumstance an argument in its favor? If one would be employed or amused through life, should we not make choice of a passion that will keep one long in play? — William Shenstone

Deference often shrinks and withers as much upon the approach of intimacy as the sensitive plant does upon the touch of one's finger. — William Shenstone

The works of a person that begin immediately to decay, while those of him who plants begin directly to improve. In this, planting promises a more lasting pleasure than building; which, were it to remain in equal perfection, would at best begin to moulder and want repairs in imagination. Now trees have a circumstance that suits our taste, and that is annual variety. — William Shenstone

Learning, like money, may be of so base a coin as to be utterly void of use; or, if sterling, may require good management to make it serve the purposes of sense or happiness. — William Shenstone

The best time to frame an answer to the letters of a friend, is the moment you receive them. Then the warmth of friendship, and the intelligence received, most forcibly cooperate. — William Shenstone

Taste and good-nature are universally connected. — William Shenstone

Nothing is certain in London but expense. — William Shenstone

What some people term Freedom is nothing else than a liberty of saying and doing disagreeable things. It is but carrying the notion a little higher, and it would require us to break and have a head broken reciprocally without offense. — William Shenstone

Flattery of the verbal kind is gross. In short, applause is of too coarse a nature to be swallowed in the gross, though the extract or tincture be ever so agreeable. — William Shenstone

Reserve is no more essentially connected with understanding than a church organ with devotion, or wine with good-nature. — William Shenstone

Taste is pursued at a less expense than fashion. — William Shenstone

There is nothing more universally commended than a fine day; the reason is that people can commend it without envy. — William Shenstone

In every village marked with little spire,
Embowered in trees, and hardly known to fame. — William Shenstone

Men are sometimes accused of pride, merely because their accusers would be proud themselves were they in their places. — William Shenstone

When misfortunes happen to such as dissent from us in matters of religion, we call them judgments; when to those of our own sect, we call them trials; when to persons neither way distinguished, we are content to attribute them to the settled course of things. — William Shenstone

Prudent men lock up their motives, letting familiars have a key to their hearts, as to their garden. — William Shenstone

The world may be divided into people that read, people that write, people that think, and fox-hunters. — William Shenstone

Persons who discover a flatterer, do not always disapprove him, because he imagines them considerable enough to deserve his applications. — William Shenstone

Fools are very often united in the strictest intimacies, as the lighter kinds of woods are the most closely glued together. — William Shenstone

There is a certain flimsiness of poetry which seems expedient in a song. — William Shenstone

In a heavy oppressive atmosphere, when the spirits sink too low, the best cordial is to read over all the letters of one's friends. — William Shenstone

There are no persons more solicitous about the preservation of rank than those who have no rank at all. Observe the humors of a country christening, and you will find no court in Christendom so ceremonious as the quality of Brentford. — William Shenstone

A plain narrative of any remarkable fact, emphatically related, has a more striking effect without the author's comment. — William Shenstone

The most reserved of men, that will not exchange two syllables together in an English coffee-house, should they meet at Ispahan, would drink sherbet and eat a mess of rice together. — William Shenstone

Independence may be found in comparative as well as in absolute abundance; I mean where a person contracts his desires within the limits of his fortune. — William Shenstone

Every single instance of a friend's insincerity increases our dependence on the efficacy of money. — William Shenstone

When self-interest inclines a man to print, he should consider that the purchaser expects a pennyworth for his penny, and has reason to asperse his honesty if he finds himself deceived. — William Shenstone

Poetry and consumption are the most flattering of diseases. — William Shenstone

Let the gulled fool the toil of war pursue, where bleed the many to enrich the few. — William Shenstone

Modesty makes large amends for the pain it gives those who labor under it, by the prejudice it affords every worthy person in their favor. — William Shenstone

Love can be founded upon Nature only. — William Shenstone

In designing a house and gardens, it is happy when there is an opportunity of maintaining a subordination of parts; the house so luckily place as to exhibit a view of the whole design. I have sometimes thought that there was room for it to resemble a epic or dramatic poem. — William Shenstone

It happens a little unluckily that the persons who have the most infinite contempt of money are the same that have the strongest appetite for the pleasures it procures. — William Shenstone

Fashion is a great restraint upon your persons of taste and fancy; who would otherwise in the most trifling instances be able to distinguish themselves from the vulgar. — William Shenstone

A miser grows rich by seeming poor; an extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich. — William Shenstone

So sweetly she bade me adieu, I thought that she bade me return. — William Shenstone

A person that would secure to himself great deference will, perhaps, gain his point by silence as effectually as by anything he can say. — William Shenstone

Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it. — William Shenstone

Persons are oftentimes misled in regard to their choice of dress by attending to the beauty of colors, rather than selecting such colors as may increase their own beauty. — William Shenstone

Some men use no other means to acquire respect than by insisting on it; and it sometimes answers their purpose, as it does a highwayman's in regard to money. — William Shenstone

The love of popularity seems little else than the love of being beloved; and is only blamable when a person aims at the affections of a people by means in appearance honest, but in their end pernicious and destructive. — William Shenstone

I am thankful that my name in obnoxious to no pun. — William Shenstone

People can commend the weather without envy. — William Shenstone

The regard one shows economy, is like that we show an old aunt who is to leave us something at last. — William Shenstone

Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments. — William Shenstone

It should seem that indolence itself would incline a person to be honest, as it requires infinitely greater pains and contrivance to be a knave. — William Shenstone

Hope is a flatterer, but the most upright of all parasites; for she frequents the poor man's hut, as well as the palace of his superior. — William Shenstone

A large, branching, aged oak is perhaps the most venerable of all inanimate objects. — William Shenstone

Trifles discover a character, more than actions of importance. — William Shenstone

Grandeur and beauty are so very opposite, that you often diminish the one as you increase the other. Variety is most akin to the latter, simplicity to the former. — William Shenstone

Critics must excuse me if I compare them to certain animals called asses, who, by gnawing vines, originally taught the great advantage of pruning them. — William Shenstone

Avarice is the most oppose of all characters to that of God Almighty, whose alone it is to give and not receive. — William Shenstone

The weak and insipid white wine makes at length excellent vinegar. — William Shenstone

Theirs is the present who can praise the past. — William Shenstone

Offensive objects, at a proper distance, acquire even a degree of beauty. — William Shenstone

A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood. — William Shenstone

There would not be any absolute necessity for reserve if the world were honest; yet even then it would prove expedient. For, in order to attain any degree of deference, it seems necessary that people should imagine you have more accomplishments than you discover. — William Shenstone

My banks they are furnish'd with bees, Whose murmur invites one to sleep. — William Shenstone

Misers, as death approaches, are heaping up a chest of reasons to stand in more awe of him. — William Shenstone

The proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one. — William Shenstone

Patience is the panacea; but where does it grow, or who can swallow it? — William Shenstone

Wit is the refractory pupil of judgment. — William Shenstone