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Trifles discover a character, more than actions of importance.

William Shenstone

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William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
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Character
Trifles
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Actions
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More quotes by William Shenstone

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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
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Offensive objects, at a proper distance, acquire even a degree of beauty.
William Shenstone
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A large retinue upon a small income, like a large cascade upon a small stream, tends to discover its tenuity.
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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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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Second thoughts oftentimes are the very worst of all thoughts.
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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Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent.
William Shenstone
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The eye must be easy, before it can be pleased.
William Shenstone
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Independence may be found in comparative as well as in absolute abundance I mean where a person contracts his desires within the limits of his fortune.
William Shenstone
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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
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Learning, like money, may be of so base a coin as to be utterly void of use.
William Shenstone
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We may daily discover crowds acquire sufficient wealth to buy gentility, but very few that possess the virtues which ennoble human nature, and (in the best sense of the word) constitute a gentleman.
William Shenstone
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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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I have been formerly so silly as to hope that every servant I had might be made a friend I am now convinced that the nature of servitude generally bears a contrary tendency. People's characters are to be chiefly collected from their education and place in life birth itself does but little.
William Shenstone
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There is a certain flimsiness of poetry which seems expedient in a song.
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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Prudent men lock up their motives, letting familiars have a key to their hearts, as to their garden.
William Shenstone
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Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it.
William Shenstone
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Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. They are sensitive plants, which will not bear too familiar approaches.
William Shenstone