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Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.

William Shenstone

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William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
Writer
Fragrance
Virtues
Exposed
Essence
Lose
Loses
Virtue
Like
Essences

More quotes by William Shenstone

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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
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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
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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
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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
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A miser grows rich by seeming poor. An extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.
William Shenstone
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Misers, as death approaches, are heaping up a chest of reasons to stand in more awe of him.
William Shenstone
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Second thoughts oftentimes are the very worst of all thoughts.
William Shenstone
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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
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It seems with wit and good-nature, Utrum horum mavis accipe. Taste and good-nature are universally connected.
William Shenstone
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Men of quality never appear more amiable than when their dress is plain. Their birth, rank, title and its appendages are at best indivious and as they do not need the assistance of dress, so, by their disclaiming the advantage of it, they make their superiority sit more easy.
William Shenstone
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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
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The proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one.
William Shenstone
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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
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Prudent men lock up their motives, letting familiars have a key to their hearts, as to their garden.
William Shenstone
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Zealous men are ever displaying to you the strength of their belief. while judicious men are showing you the grounds of it.
William Shenstone
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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
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What leads to unhappiness is making pleasure the chief aim.
William Shenstone
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Persons who discover a flatterer, do not always disapprove him, because he imagines them considerable enough to deserve his applications.
William Shenstone
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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
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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