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It should seem that indolence itself would incline a person to be honest, as it requires infinitely greater pains and contrivance to be a knave.

William Shenstone

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William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
Writer
Persons
Infinitely
Person
Requires
Would
Honesty
Contrivance
Seem
Knave
Honest
Knaves
Greater
Incline
Pain
Indolence
Seems
Pains

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To thee, fair Freedom! I retire From flattery, cards, and dice, and din: Nor art thou found in mansions higher Than the low cot, or humble inn.
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Glory relaxes often and debilitates the mind censure stimulates and contracts,--both to an extreme. Simple fame is, perhaps, the proper medium.
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A miser grows rich by seeming poor. An extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.
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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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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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What leads to unhappiness is making pleasure the chief aim.
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Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. They are sensitive plants, which will not bear too familiar approaches.
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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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Offensive objects, at a proper distance, acquire even a degree of beauty.
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The regard one shows economy, is like that we show an old aunt who is to leave us something at last.
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May I always have a heart superior, with economy suitable, to my fortune.
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Many persons, when exalted, assume an insolent humility, who behaved before with an insolent haughtiness.
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A fool and his words are soon parted.
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Patience is the panacea but where does it grow, or who can swallow 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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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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Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent.
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Modesty makes large amends for the pain it gives those who labor under it, by the prejudice it affords every worthy person in their favor.
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The most reserved of men, that will not exchange two syllables together in an English coffee-house, should they meet at Ispahan, would drink sherbet and eat a mess of rice together.
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Those who are incapable of shining out by dress would do well to consider that the contrast between them and their clothes turns out much to their disadvantage.
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