Quote

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

William Shenstone

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
Writer
Sense
Nature
Good
Gilded
Defence
Meaning
Fool
Honest

More quotes by William Shenstone

Image
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
Image
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
Image
Some men are called sagacious, merely on account of their avarice whereas a child can clench its fist the moment it is born.
William Shenstone
Image
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
Image
So sweetly she bade me adieu, I thought that she bade me return.
William Shenstone
Image
Taste and good-nature are universally connected.
William Shenstone
Image
A large, branching, aged oak is perhaps the most venerable of all inanimate objects.
William Shenstone
Image
The making presents to a lady one addresses is like throwing armor into an enemy's camp, with a resolution to recover it.
William Shenstone
Image
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
Image
Bashfulness is more frequently connected with good sense than we find assurance and impudence, on the other hand, is often the mere effect of downright stupidity.
William Shenstone
Image
Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world.
William Shenstone
Image
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
Image
Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent.
William Shenstone
Image
Many persons, when exalted, assume an insolent humility, who behaved before with an insolent haughtiness.
William Shenstone
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I trimmed my lamp, consumed the midnight oil.
William Shenstone
Image
Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.
William Shenstone
Image
Theirs is the present who can praise the past.
William Shenstone
Image
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