Quote

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

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
Littles
Remarkable
Witticism
May
Abuse
Indiscriminately
Little
Pass
Border
Every
Piece
Obliged
Men
Genius
Wit
Pieces
Afford
Happen
Borders
Happens
Catch

More quotes by William Shenstone

Image
Long sentences in a short composition are like large rooms in a little house.
William Shenstone
Image
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
Image
Prudent men lock up their motives, letting familiars have a key to their hearts, as to their garden.
William Shenstone
Image
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.
William Shenstone
Image
A large retinue upon a small income, like a large cascade upon a small stream, tends to discover its tenuity.
William Shenstone
Image
Reserve is no more essentially connected with understanding than a church organ with devotion, or wine with good-nature.
William Shenstone
Image
The fund of sensible discourse is limited that of jest and badinerie is infinite.
William Shenstone
Image
Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.
William Shenstone
Image
What leads to unhappiness is making pleasure the chief aim.
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
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
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
Image
Immoderate assurance is perfect licentiousness.
William Shenstone
Image
Glory relaxes often and debilitates the mind censure stimulates and contracts,--both to an extreme. Simple fame is, perhaps, the proper medium.
William Shenstone
Image
The world may be divided into people that read, people that write, people that think, and fox-hunters.
William Shenstone
Image
Love is a pleasing but a various clime.
William Shenstone
Image
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
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
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.
William Shenstone
Image
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.
William Shenstone