William Shenstone Quotes
-
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.
-
The world may be divided into people that read, people that write, people that think, and fox-hunters.
-
The eye must be easy, before it can be pleased.
-
Trifles discover a character, more than actions of importance.
-
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.
-
Amid the most mercenary ages it is but a secondary sort of admiration that is bestowed upon magnificence.
-
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.
-
I am thankful that my name in obnoxious to no pun.
-
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.
-
The proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one.
-
A large, branching, aged oak is perhaps the most venerable of all inanimate objects.
-
To one who said, "I do not believe that there is an honest man in the world," another replied, "It is impossible that any one man should know all the world, but quite possible that one may know himself."
-
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.
-
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.
-
It seems with wit and good-nature, Utrum horum mavis accipe. Taste and good-nature are universally connected.
-
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.
-
A man has generally the good or ill qualities which he attributes to mankind.
-
The difference there is betwixt honor and honesty seems to be chiefly the motive; the mere honest man does that from duty which the man of honor does for the sake of character.
-
Deference often shrinks and withers as much upon the approach of intimacy as the sensitive plant does upon the touch of one's finger.
-
A fool and his words are soon parted.
-
There are no persons more solicitous about the preservation of rank than those who have no rank at all. Observe the humors of a country christening, and you will find no court in Christendom so ceremonious as the quality of Brentford.
-
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.
-
Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture, as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle-sized are alone entangled in it.
-
Persons are oftentimes misled in regard to their choice of dress by attending to the beauty of colors, rather than selecting such colors as may increase their own beauty.