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Necessity may be the mother of lucrative invention, but it is the death of poetical invention.

William Shenstone

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William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
Writer
Mother
May
Lucrative
Poetical
Necessity
Invention
Death

More quotes by William Shenstone

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The fund of sensible discourse is limited that of jest and badinerie is infinite.
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Poetry and consumption are the most flattering of diseases.
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My banks they are furnish'd with bees, Whose murmur invites one to sleep.
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Nothing is certain in London but expense.
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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.
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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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A fool and his words are soon parted.
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Patience is the panacea but where does it grow, or who can swallow it?
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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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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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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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Some men are called sagacious, merely on account of their avarice whereas a child can clench its fist the moment it is born.
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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.
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Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.
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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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Health is beauty, and the most perfect health is the most perfect beauty.
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A statue in a garden is to be considered as one part of a scene or landscape.
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However, I think a plain space near the eye gives it a kind of liberty it loves and then the picture, whether you choose the grand or beautiful, should be held up at its proper distance. Variety is the principal ingredient in beauty and simplicity is essential to grandeur.
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Offensive objects, at a proper distance, acquire even a degree of beauty.
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What some people term Freedom is nothing else than a liberty of saying and doing disagreeable things. It is but carrying the notion a little higher, and it would require us to break and have a head broken reciprocally without offense.
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