William Shenstone Quotes
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A man has generally the good or ill qualities which he attributes to mankind.
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A fool and his words are soon parted.
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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.
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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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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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Long sentences in a short composition are like large rooms in a little house.
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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.
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Theirs is the present who can praise the past.
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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.
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Some men are called sagacious, merely on account of their avarice; whereas a child can clench its fist the moment it is born.
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Necessity may be the mother of lucrative invention, but it is the death of poetical invention.
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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.
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Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.
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In every village marked with little spire, Embowered in trees, and hardly known to fame.
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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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I know not whether increasing years do not cause us to esteem fewer people and to bear with more.
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When self-interest inclines a man to print, he should consider that the purchaser expects a pennyworth for his penny, and has reason to asperse his honesty if he finds himself deceived.
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A man of remarkable genius may afford to pass by a piece of wit, if it happen to border on abuse. A little genius is obliged to catch at every witticism indiscriminately.
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The weak and insipid white wine makes at length excellent vinegar.
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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.
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It should seem that indolence itself would incline a person to be honest, as it requires infinitely greater pains and contrivance to be a knave.
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Thanks, oftenest obtrusive.
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Taste and good-nature are universally connected.
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Love can be founded upon Nature only.