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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
Seem
Knave
Honest
Knaves
Greater
Incline
Pain
Indolence
Seems
Pains
Persons
Infinitely
Person
Requires
Would
Honesty
Contrivance
More quotes by William Shenstone
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.
William Shenstone
People can commend the weather without envy.
William Shenstone
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.
William Shenstone
A person that would secure to himself great deference will, perhaps, gain his point by silence as effectually as by anything he can say.
William Shenstone
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.
William Shenstone
To one who said, I do not believe that there is an honest man in the world, another replied, It is impossible that any one man should know all the world, but quite possible that one may know himself.
William Shenstone
The regard one shows economy, is like that we show an old aunt who is to leave us something at last.
William Shenstone
Some men use no other means to acquire respect than by insisting on it and it sometimes answers their purpose, as it does a highwayman's in regard to money.
William Shenstone
A large, branching, aged oak is perhaps the most venerable of all inanimate objects.
William Shenstone
Fashion is a great restraint upon your persons of taste and fancy who would otherwise in the most trifling instances be able to distinguish themselves from the vulgar.
William Shenstone
Learning, like money, may be of so base a coin as to be utterly void of use.
William Shenstone
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.
William Shenstone
Health is beauty, and the most perfect health is the most perfect beauty.
William Shenstone
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
The weak and insipid white wine makes at length excellent vinegar.
William Shenstone
The difference there is betwixt honor and honesty seems to be chiefly the motive the mere honest man does that from duty which the man of honor does for the sake of character.
William Shenstone
The proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one.
William Shenstone
A large retinue upon a small income, like a large cascade upon a small stream, tends to discover its tenuity.
William Shenstone
Persons are oftentimes misled in regard to their choice of dress by attending to the beauty of colors, rather than selecting such colors as may increase their own beauty.
William Shenstone
Some men are called sagacious, merely on account of their avarice whereas a child can clench its fist the moment it is born.
William Shenstone
