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I trimmed my lamp, consumed the midnight oil.

William Shenstone

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William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
Writer
Lamp
Lamps
Consumed
Midnight
Oil
Learning
Trimmed

More quotes by 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.
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The proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one.
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Immoderate assurance is perfect licentiousness.
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Love can be founded upon Nature only.
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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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Taste is pursued at a less expense than fashion.
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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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Learning, like money, may be of so base a coin as to be utterly void of use.
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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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Prudent men lock up their motives, letting familiars have a key to their hearts, as to their garden.
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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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Fools are very often united in the strictest intimacies, as the lighter kinds of woods are the most closely glued together.
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So sweetly she bade me adieu, I thought that she bade me return.
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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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Second thoughts oftentimes are the very worst of all thoughts.
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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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Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.
William Shenstone
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Amid the most mercenary ages it is but a secondary sort of admiration that is bestowed upon magnificence.
William Shenstone
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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.
William Shenstone
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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.
William Shenstone