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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

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William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
Writer
Happen
Borders
Happens
Catch
Littles
Remarkable
Witticism
May
Abuse
Indiscriminately
Little
Pass
Border
Every
Piece
Obliged
Men
Genius
Wit
Pieces
Afford

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A large retinue upon a small income, like a large cascade upon a small stream, tends to discover its tenuity.
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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.
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Necessity may be the mother of lucrative invention, but it is the death of poetical invention.
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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.
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Prudent men lock up their motives, letting familiars have a key to their hearts, as to their garden.
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Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world.
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So sweetly she bade me adieu, I thought that she bade me return.
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Men are sometimes accused of pride, merely because their accusers would be proud themselves were they in their places.
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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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A miser grows rich by seeming poor. An extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.
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A court of heraldry sprung up to supply the place of crusade exploits, to grant imaginary shields and trophies to families that never wore real armor, and it is but of late that it has been discovered to have no real jurisdiction.
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Taste is pursued at a less expense than fashion.
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Wit is the refractory pupil of judgment.
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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.
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Poetry and consumption are the most flattering of diseases.
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The making presents to a lady one addresses is like throwing armor into an enemy's camp, with a resolution to recover it.
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Deference often shrinks and withers as much upon the approach of intimacy as the sensitive plant does upon the touch of one's finger.
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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.
William Shenstone
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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
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Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it.
William Shenstone