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Immoderate assurance is perfect licentiousness.

William Shenstone

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William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
Writer
Licentiousness
Immoderate
Assurance
Perfect

More quotes by William Shenstone

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I know not whether increasing years do not cause us to esteem fewer people and to bear with more.
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A fool and his words are soon parted.
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The most reserved of men, that will not exchange two syllables together in an English coffee-house, should they meet at Ispahan, would drink sherbet and eat a mess of rice together.
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A rich dress adds but little to the beauty of a person. It may possibly create a deference, but that is rather an enemy to love.
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It happens a little unluckily that the persons who have the most infinite contempt of money are the same that have the strongest appetite for the pleasures it procures.
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It seems idle to rail at ambition merely because it is a boundless passion or rather is not this circumstance an argument in its favor? If one would be employed or amused through life, should we not make choice of a passion that will keep one long in play?
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Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent.
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The lowest people are generally the first to find fault with show or equipage especially that of a person lately emerged from his obscurity. They never once consider that he is breaking the ice for themselves.
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Taste and good-nature are universally connected.
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A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.
William Shenstone
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I am thankful that my name in obnoxious to no pun.
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To thee, fair Freedom! I retire From flattery, cards, and dice, and din: Nor art thou found in mansions higher Than the low cot, or humble inn.
William Shenstone
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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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Whoe'er excels in what we prize, appears a hero in our eyes.
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Long sentences in a short composition are like large rooms in a little house.
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Taste is pursued at a less expense than fashion.
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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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A plain narrative of any remarkable fact, emphatically related, has a more striking effect without the author's comment.
William Shenstone
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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.
William Shenstone
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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