William Shenstone Quotes
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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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Theirs is the present who can praise the past.
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Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.
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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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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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In every village marked with little spire, Embowered in trees, and hardly known to fame.
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Thanks, oftenest obtrusive.
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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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I know not whether increasing years do not cause us to esteem fewer people and to bear with more.
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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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Necessity may be the mother of lucrative invention, but it is the death of poetical invention.
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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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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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Long sentences in a short composition are like large rooms in a little house.
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Love can be founded upon Nature only.
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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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Taste and good-nature are universally connected.
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The weak and insipid white wine makes at length excellent vinegar.
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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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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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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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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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Persons who discover a flatterer, do not always disapprove him, because he imagines them considerable enough to deserve his applications.