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The fund of sensible discourse is limited that of jest and badinerie is infinite.

William Shenstone

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William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
Writer
Jest
Discourse
Sensible
Fund
Limited
Infinite

More quotes by William Shenstone

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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.
William Shenstone
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Persons who discover a flatterer, do not always disapprove him, because he imagines them considerable enough to deserve his applications.
William Shenstone
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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.
William Shenstone
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Thanks, oftenest obtrusive.
William Shenstone
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Flattery of the verbal kind is gross. In short, applause is of too coarse a nature to be swallowed in the gross, though the extract or tincture be ever so agreeable.
William Shenstone
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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
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Trifles discover a character, more than actions of importance.
William Shenstone
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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.
William Shenstone
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Offensive objects, at a proper distance, acquire even a degree of beauty.
William Shenstone
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Long sentences in a short composition are like large rooms in a little house.
William Shenstone
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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.
William Shenstone
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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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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
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Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent.
William Shenstone
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A plain narrative of any remarkable fact, emphatically related, has a more striking effect without the author's comment.
William Shenstone
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Grandeur and beauty are so very opposite, that you often diminish the one as you increase the other. Variety is most akin to the latter, simplicity to the former.
William Shenstone
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A man has generally the good or ill qualities which he attributes to mankind.
William Shenstone
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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.
William Shenstone
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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.
William Shenstone
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I hate a style, as I do a garden, that is wholly flat and regular that slides along like an eel, and never rises to what one can call an inequality.
William Shenstone