William Shenstone Quotes
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A large, branching, aged oak is perhaps the most venerable of all inanimate objects.
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Those who are incapable of shining out by dress would do well to consider that the contrast between them and their clothes turns out much to their disadvantage.
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The eye must be easy, before it can be pleased.
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I am thankful that my name in obnoxious to no pun.
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The love of popularity seems little else than the love of being beloved; and is only blamable when a person aims at the affections of a people by means in appearance honest, but in their end pernicious and destructive.
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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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Trifles discover a character, more than actions of importance.
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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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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.
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The proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one.
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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.
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There is a certain flimsiness of poetry which seems expedient in a song.
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It seems with wit and good-nature, Utrum horum mavis accipe. Taste and good-nature are universally connected.
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Theirs is the present who can praise the past.
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A rich dress adds but little to the beauty of a person. It may possibly create a deference, but that is rather an enemy to love.
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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.
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A man has generally the good or ill qualities which he attributes to mankind.
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There is nothing more universally commended than a fine day; the reason is that people can commend it without envy.
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Amid the most mercenary ages it is but a secondary sort of admiration that is bestowed upon magnificence.
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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.
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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.
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Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it.
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Learning, like money, may be of so base a coin as to be utterly void of use; or, if sterling, may require good management to make it serve the purposes of sense or happiness.
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Long sentences in a short composition are like large rooms in a little house.