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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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William Shenstone
Age: 48 †
Born: 1714
Born: November 18
Died: 1763
Died: February 11
Gardener
Horticulturist
Poet
Writer
Virtue
Familiar
Like
Bear
Essences
Plant
Approaches
Bears
Fragrance
Essence
Plants
Approach
Virtues
Lose
Exposed
Loses
Sensitive

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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.
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A court of heraldry sprung up to supply the place of crusade exploits, to grant imaginary shields and trophies to families that never wore real armor, and it is but of late that it has been discovered to have no real jurisdiction.
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Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent.
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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.
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It seems idle to rail at ambition merely because it is a boundless passion or rather is not this circumstance an argument in its favor? If one would be employed or amused through life, should we not make choice of a passion that will keep one long in play?
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I hate a style, as I do a garden, that is wholly flat and regular that slides along like an eel, and never rises to what one can call an inequality.
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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.
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The most reserved of men, that will not exchange two syllables together in an English coffee-house, should they meet at Ispahan, would drink sherbet and eat a mess of rice together.
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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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Let the gulled fool the toil of war pursue, where bleed the many to enrich the few.
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Whoe'er excels in what we prize, appears a hero in our eyes.
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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.
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What leads to unhappiness is making pleasure the chief aim.
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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.
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Persons who discover a flatterer, do not always disapprove him, because he imagines them considerable enough to deserve his applications.
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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.
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Immoderate assurance is perfect licentiousness.
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A man has generally the good or ill qualities which he attributes to mankind.
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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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However, I think a plain space near the eye gives it a kind of liberty it loves and then the picture, whether you choose the grand or beautiful, should be held up at its proper distance. Variety is the principal ingredient in beauty and simplicity is essential to grandeur.
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