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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.
William Shenstone
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William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
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Sagacious
Merely
Clench
Called
Fist
Child
Avarice
Moment
Fists
Born
Whereas
Moments
Account
Children
Men
Accounts
More quotes by William Shenstone
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
Nothing is sure in London, except expense.
William Shenstone
Necessity may be the mother of lucrative invention, but it is the death of poetical invention.
William Shenstone
Men of quality never appear more amiable than when their dress is plain. Their birth, rank, title and its appendages are at best indivious and as they do not need the assistance of dress, so, by their disclaiming the advantage of it, they make their superiority sit more easy.
William Shenstone
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.
William Shenstone
Flattery of the verbal kind is gross. In short, applause is of too coarse a nature to be swallowed in the gross, though the extract or tincture be ever so agreeable.
William Shenstone
Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.
William Shenstone
Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.
William Shenstone
Taste is pursued at a less expense than fashion.
William Shenstone
Every single instance of a friend's insincerity increases our dependence on the efficacy of money.
William Shenstone
When self-interest inclines a man to print, he should consider that the purchaser expects a pennyworth for his penny, and has reason to asperse his honesty if he finds himself deceived.
William Shenstone
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
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
A wound in the friendship of young persons, as in the bark of young trees, may be so grown over as to leave no scar. The case is very different in regard to old persons and old timber. The reason of this may be accountable from the decline of the social passions, and the prevalence of spleen, suspicion, and rancor towards the latter part of life.
William Shenstone
Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it.
William Shenstone
Wit is the refractory pupil of judgment.
William Shenstone
A man has generally the good or ill qualities which he attributes to mankind.
William Shenstone
Offensive objects, at a proper distance, acquire even a degree of beauty.
William Shenstone
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
The difference there is betwixt honor and honesty seems to be chiefly the motive the mere honest man does that from duty which the man of honor does for the sake of character.
William Shenstone
