Quote

There is a certain flimsiness of poetry which seems expedient in a song.

William Shenstone

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
Writer
Expedient
Poetry
Song
Certain
Seems

More quotes by William Shenstone

Image
Harmony of period and melody of style have greater weight than is generally imagined in the judgment we pass upon writing and writers. As a proof of this, let us reflect what texts of scripture, what lines in poetry, or what periods we most remember and quote, either in verse or prose, and we shall find them to be only musical ones.
William Shenstone
Image
Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world.
William Shenstone
Image
Trifles discover a character, more than actions of importance.
William Shenstone
Image
Whoe'er excels in what we prize, appears a hero in our eyes.
William Shenstone
Image
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.
William Shenstone
Image
The lines of poetry, the period of prose, and even the texts of Scripture most frequently recollected and quoted, are those which are felt to be preeminently musical.
William Shenstone
Image
There is nothing more universally commended than a fine day the reason is that people can commend it without envy.
William Shenstone
Image
Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.
William Shenstone
Image
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.
William Shenstone
Image
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
Image
Learning, like money, may be of so base a coin as to be utterly void of use.
William Shenstone
Image
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.
William Shenstone
Image
Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.
William Shenstone
Image
Love is a pleasing but a various clime.
William Shenstone
Image
Fools are very often united in the strictest intimacies, as the lighter kinds of woods are the most closely glued together.
William Shenstone
Image
Men of quality never appear more amiable than when their dress is plain. Their birth, rank, title and its appendages are at best indivious and as they do not need the assistance of dress, so, by their disclaiming the advantage of it, they make their superiority sit more easy.
William Shenstone
Image
Amid the most mercenary ages it is but a secondary sort of admiration that is bestowed upon magnificence.
William Shenstone
Image
A fool and his words are soon parted.
William Shenstone
Image
I know not whether increasing years do not cause us to esteem fewer people and to bear with more.
William Shenstone
Image
The making presents to a lady one addresses is like throwing armor into an enemy's camp, with a resolution to recover it.
William Shenstone