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

William Shenstone

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

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The world may be divided into people that read, people that write, people that think, and fox-hunters.
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Anger and the thirst of revenge are a kind of fever fighting and lawsuits, bleeding,--at least, an evacuation. The latter occasions a dissipation of money the former, of those fiery spirits which cause a preternatural fermentation.
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The eye must be easy, before it can be pleased.
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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.
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Offensive objects, at a proper distance, acquire even a degree of beauty.
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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.
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Glory relaxes often and debilitates the mind censure stimulates and contracts,--both to an extreme. Simple fame is, perhaps, the proper medium.
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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.
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A man has generally the good or ill qualities which he attributes to mankind.
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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.
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Nothing is certain in London but expense.
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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.
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Those who are incapable of shining out by dress would do well to consider that the contrast between them and their clothes turns out much to their disadvantage.
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Trifles discover a character, more than actions of importance.
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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.
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I am thankful that my name in obnoxious to no pun.
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Taste is pursued at a less expense than fashion.
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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.
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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.
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Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.
William Shenstone