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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
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Trifles
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More quotes by 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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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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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.
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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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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Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. They are sensitive plants, which will not bear too familiar approaches.
William Shenstone
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So sweetly she bade me adieu, I thought that she bade me return.
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
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Men are sometimes accused of pride, merely because their accusers would be proud themselves were they in their places.
William Shenstone
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There is nothing more universally commended than a fine day the reason is that people can commend it without envy.
William Shenstone
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Many persons, when exalted, assume an insolent humility, who behaved before with an insolent haughtiness.
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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My banks they are furnish'd with bees, Whose murmur invites one to sleep.
William Shenstone
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Love can be founded upon Nature only.
William Shenstone
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A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.
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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Patience is the panacea but where does it grow, or who can swallow it?
William Shenstone
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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.
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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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