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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
Honest
Knaves
Greater
Incline
Pain
Indolence
Seems
Pains
Persons
Infinitely
Person
Requires
Would
Honesty
Contrivance
Seem
Knave

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There is nothing more universally commended than a fine day the reason is that people can commend it without envy.
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Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world.
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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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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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Misers, as death approaches, are heaping up a chest of reasons to stand in more awe of him.
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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.
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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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Second thoughts oftentimes are the very worst of all thoughts.
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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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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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In designing a house and gardens, it is happy when there is an opportunity of maintaining a subordination of parts the house so luckily place as to exhibit a view of the whole design. I have sometimes thought that there was room for it to resemble a epic or dramatic poem.
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Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it.
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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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Learning, like money, may be of so base a coin as to be utterly void of use.
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The eye must be easy, before it can be pleased.
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Learning, like money, may be of so base a coin as to be utterly void of use or, if sterling, may require good management to make it serve the purposes of sense or happiness.
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Taste is pursued at a less expense than fashion.
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The world may be divided into people that read, people that write, people that think, and fox-hunters.
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Let the gulled fool the toil of war pursue, where bleed the many to enrich the few.
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Bashfulness is more frequently connected with good sense than we find assurance and impudence, on the other hand, is often the mere effect of downright stupidity.
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