Quote

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.

William Shenstone

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William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
Writer
Find
Generally
Emerged
Firsts
Faults
Lately
First
Consider
Obscurity
Never
Especially
Lowest
People
Show
Shows
Ice
Persons
Breaking
Person
Fault

More quotes by William Shenstone

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It seems with wit and good-nature, Utrum horum mavis accipe. Taste and good-nature are universally connected.
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Offensive objects, at a proper distance, acquire even a degree of beauty.
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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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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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What leads to unhappiness is making pleasure the chief aim.
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Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round, Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found The warmest welcome at an inn.
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Wit is the refractory pupil of judgment.
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Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.
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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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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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There are no persons more solicitous about the preservation of rank than those who have no rank at all. Observe the humors of a country christening, and you will find no court in Christendom so ceremonious as the quality of Brentford.
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Second thoughts oftentimes are the very worst of all thoughts.
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A large retinue upon a small income, like a large cascade upon a small stream, tends to discover its tenuity.
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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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Immoderate assurance is perfect licentiousness.
William Shenstone
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My banks they are furnish'd with bees, Whose murmur invites one to sleep.
William Shenstone
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Thanks, oftenest obtrusive.
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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?
William Shenstone
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Let the gulled fool the toil of war pursue, where bleed the many to enrich the few.
William Shenstone
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The proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one.
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