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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
Writer
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Trifles

More quotes by William Shenstone

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Nothing is sure in London, except expense.
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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Many persons, when exalted, assume an insolent humility, who behaved before with an insolent haughtiness.
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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Critics must excuse me if I compare them to certain animals called asses, who, by gnawing vines, originally taught the great advantage of pruning them.
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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When misfortunes happen to such as dissent from us in matters of religion, we call them judgments when to those of our own sect, we call them trials when to persons neither way distinguished, we are content to attribute them to the settled course of things.
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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It happens a little unluckily that the persons who have the most infinite contempt of money are the same that have the strongest appetite for the pleasures it procures.
William Shenstone
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In every village marked with little spire, Embowered in trees, and hardly known to fame.
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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Reserve is no more essentially connected with understanding than a church organ with devotion, or wine with good-nature.
William Shenstone
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People can commend the weather without envy.
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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Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.
William Shenstone
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Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.
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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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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Necessity may be the mother of lucrative invention, but it is the death of poetical invention.
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