Quote

Glory relaxes often and debilitates the mind censure stimulates and contracts,--both to an extreme. Simple fame is, perhaps, the proper medium.

William Shenstone

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William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
Writer
Extremes
Stimulates
Fame
Censure
Glory
Contracts
Perhaps
Medium
Simple
Mediums
Often
Extreme
Mind
Relax
Proper
Relaxes

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Every single instance of a friend's insincerity increases our dependence on the efficacy of money.
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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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Zealous men are ever displaying to you the strength of their belief. while judicious men are showing you the grounds of it.
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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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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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I am thankful that my name in obnoxious to no pun.
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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.
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Necessity may be the mother of lucrative invention, but it is the death of poetical invention.
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There would not be any absolute necessity for reserve if the world were honest yet even then it would prove expedient. For, in order to attain any degree of deference, it seems necessary that people should imagine you have more accomplishments than you discover.
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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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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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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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Health is beauty, and the most perfect health is the most perfect beauty.
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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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Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent.
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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.
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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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Poetry and consumption are the most flattering of diseases.
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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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However, I think a plain space near the eye gives it a kind of liberty it loves and then the picture, whether you choose the grand or beautiful, should be held up at its proper distance. Variety is the principal ingredient in beauty and simplicity is essential to grandeur.
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