William Shenstone Quotes

William Shenstone shares clever, earthy musings on nature, human folly, and the quiet lessons of everyday life.

32 quotes

1. Oft has good nature been the fool's defence, And honest meaning gilded want of sense.

2. Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow, Emblem right meet of decency does yield.

3. Whoe'er has traveled 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.

4. Every good poet includes a critic; the reverse will not hold.

5. A fool and his words are soon parted.

6. Love is a pleasing but a various clime.

7. So sweetly she bade me adieu, I thought that she bade me return.

8. I have found out a gift for my fair; I have found where the wood-pigeons breed.

9. My banks they are furnish'd with bees, Whose murmur invites one to sleep.

10. For seldom shall she hear a tale So sad, so tender, and so true.

11. Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow, Emblems right meet of decency does yield.

12. Pun-provoking thyme.

13. A little bench of heedless bishops here, And there a chancellor in embryo.

14. Some men are called sagacious, merely on account of their avarice: whereas a child can clench its fist the moment it is born.

15. Zealous men are ever displaying to you the strength of their belief, while judicious men are shewing you the grounds of it.

16. There seem near as many people that want passion as want reason.

17. A man has generally the good or ill qualities which he attributes to mankind.

18. Necessity may be the mother of lucrative invention, but it is the death of poetical.

19. Persons who discover a flatterer, do not always disapprove him, because he imagines them considerable enough to deserve his applications.

20. 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.

21. Avarice is the most oppose of all characters to that of God Almighty, whose alone it is to give and not receive.

22. A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.

23. Nothing is certain in London but expense.

24. What some people term Freedom is nothing else than a liberty of saying and doing disagreeable things. It is but carrying the notion a little higher, and it would require us to break and have a head broken reciprocally without offense.

25. 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.

26. Fashion is a great restraint upon your persons of taste and fancy; who would otherwise in the most trifling instances be able to distinguish themselves from the vulgar.

27. His knowledge of books had in some degree diminished his knowledge of the world.

28. Patience is the panacea; but where does it grow, or who can swallow it?

29. A large retinue upon a small income, like a large cascade upon a small stream, tends to discover its tenuity.

30. 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.

31. Taste is pursued at a less expense than fashion.

32. Long sentences in a short composition are like large rooms in a little house.