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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
Invention
Death
Mother
May
Lucrative
Poetical
Necessity

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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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Hope is a flatterer, but the most upright of all parasites for she frequents the poor man's hut, as well as the palace of his superior.
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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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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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It is true there is nothing displays a genius, I mean a quickness of genius, more than a dispute as two diamonds, encountering, contribute to each other's luster. But perhaps the odds is much against the man of taste in this particular.
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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.
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There is a certain flimsiness of poetry which seems expedient in a song.
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The regard one shows economy, is like that we show an old aunt who is to leave us something at last.
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Oft has good nature been the fool's defence, And honest meaning gilded want of sense.
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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.
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Taste and good-nature are universally connected.
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Thanks, oftenest obtrusive.
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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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A fool and his words are soon parted.
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Trifles discover a character, more than actions of importance.
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A man has generally the good or ill qualities which he attributes to mankind.
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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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Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. They are sensitive plants, which will not bear too familiar approaches.
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Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.
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Nothing is certain in London but expense.
William Shenstone