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Deference often shrinks and withers as much upon the approach of intimacy as the sensitive plant does upon the touch of one's finger.

William Shenstone

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William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
Writer
Plant
Touch
Withers
Approach
Deference
Upon
Shrinks
Often
Finger
Doe
Intimacy
Much
Sensitive
Fingers

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Anger and the thirst of revenge are a kind of fever fighting and lawsuits, bleeding,--at least, an evacuation. The latter occasions a dissipation of money the former, of those fiery spirits which cause a preternatural fermentation.
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Offensive objects, at a proper distance, acquire even a degree of beauty.
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A fool and his words are soon parted.
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A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.
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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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A person that would secure to himself great deference will, perhaps, gain his point by silence as effectually as by anything he can say.
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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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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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