William Shenstone Quotes

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

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

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

Poetry and consumption are the most flattering of diseases.

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

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

Second thoughts oftentimes are the very worst of all thoughts.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

I trimmed my lamp, consumed the midnight oil.

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

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

Nothing is certain in London but expense.

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

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

Health is beauty, and the most perfect health is the most perfect beauty.

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

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

Trifles discover a character, more than actions of importance.

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

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

Immoderate assurance is perfect licentiousness.

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

Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.

Taste is pursued at a less expense than fashion.

People can commend the weather without envy.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Theirs is the present who can praise the past.

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.

Love can be founded upon Nature only.

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

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

The eye must be easy, before it can be pleased.

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.

Taste and good-nature are universally connected.

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

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

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.

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

Wit is the refractory pupil of judgment.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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