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Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.

William Shenstone

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William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
Writer
Complicate
Deference
Compliments
Indirect
Elegant
Compliment

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Grandeur and beauty are so very opposite, that you often diminish the one as you increase the other. Variety is most akin to the latter, simplicity to the former.
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The eye must be easy, before it can be pleased.
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Trifles discover a character, more than actions of importance.
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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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We may daily discover crowds acquire sufficient wealth to buy gentility, but very few that possess the virtues which ennoble human nature, and (in the best sense of the word) constitute a gentleman.
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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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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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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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In a heavy oppressive atmosphere, when the spirits sink too low, the best cordial is to read over all the letters of one's friends.
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Whoe'er excels in what we prize, appears a hero in our eyes.
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Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture, as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle-sized are alone entangled in it.
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The best time to frame an answer to the letters of a friend, is the moment you receive them. Then the warmth of friendship, and the intelligence received, most forcibly cooperate.
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Men are sometimes accused of pride, merely because their accusers would be proud themselves were they in their places.
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I am thankful that my name in obnoxious to no pun.
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Prudent men lock up their motives, letting familiars have a key to their hearts, as to their garden.
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There is a certain flimsiness of poetry which seems expedient in a song.
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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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Reserve is no more essentially connected with understanding than a church organ with devotion, or wine with good-nature.
William Shenstone
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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.
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Avarice is the most oppose of all characters to that of God Almighty, whose alone it is to give and not receive.
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