William Shenstone quotes:

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.

Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it.

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

The best time to frame an answer to the letters of a friend, is the moment you receive them. Then the warmth of friendship, and the intelligence received, most forcibly cooperate.

Hope is a flatterer, but the most upright of all parasites; for she frequents the poor man's hut, as well as the palace of his superior.

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

A miser grows rich by seeming poor; an extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.

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

The proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one.

Second thoughts oftentimes are the very worst of all thoughts.

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.

Every single instance of a friend's insincerity increases our dependence on the efficacy of money.

Grandeur and beauty are so very opposite, that you often diminish the one as you increase the other. Variety is most akin to the latter, simplicity to the former.

Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.

The world may be divided into people that read, people that write, people that think, and fox-hunters.

The regard one shows economy, is like that we show an old aunt who is to leave us something at last.

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

Deference often shrinks and withers as much upon the approach of intimacy as the sensitive plant does upon the touch of one's finger.

Poetry and consumption are the most flattering of diseases.

Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.

I am thankful that my name in obnoxious to no pun.

Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world.

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

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

I hate a style, as I do a garden, that is wholly flat and regular; that slides along like an eel, and never rises to what one can call an inequality.

Anger and the thirst of revenge are a kind of fever; fighting and lawsuits, bleeding,--at least, an evacuation. The latter occasions a dissipation of money; the former, of those fiery spirits which cause a preternatural fermentation.

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.

Many persons, when exalted, assume an insolent humility, who behaved before with an insolent haughtiness.

Some men use no other means to acquire respect than by insisting on it; and it sometimes answers their purpose, as it does a highwayman's in regard to money.

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.

To thee, fair Freedom! I retire From flattery, cards, and dice, and din: Nor art thou found in mansions higher Than the low cot, or humble inn.

A miser grows rich by seeming poor. An extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.

Prudent men lock up their motives, letting familiars have a key to their hearts, as to their garden.

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.

Critics must excuse me if I compare them to certain animals called asses, who, by gnawing vines, originally taught the great advantage of pruning them.

It seems idle to rail at ambition merely because it is a boundless passion; or rather is not this circumstance an argument in its favor? If one would be employed or amused through life, should we not make choice of a passion that will keep one long in play?

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 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.

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.

Trifles discover a character, more than actions of importance.

A fool and his words are soon parted.

The weak and insipid white wine makes at length excellent vinegar.

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

There is nothing more universally commended than a fine day; the reason is that people can commend it without envy.

A court of heraldry sprung up to supply the place of crusade exploits, to grant imaginary shields and trophies to families that never wore real armor, and it is but of late that it has been discovered to have no real jurisdiction.

A large, branching, aged oak is perhaps the most venerable of all inanimate objects.

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

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.

A person that would secure to himself great deference will, perhaps, gain his point by silence as effectually as by anything he can say.

A plain narrative of any remarkable fact, emphatically related, has a more striking effect without the author's comment.

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.

A statue in a garden is to be considered as one part of a scene or landscape.

Amid the most mercenary ages it is but a secondary sort of admiration that is bestowed upon magnificence.

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

Bashfulness is more frequently connected with good sense than we find assurance; and impudence, on the other hand, is often the mere effect of downright stupidity.

Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.

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.

Flattery of the verbal kind is gross. In short, applause is of too coarse a nature to be swallowed in the gross, though the extract or tincture be ever so agreeable.

Fools are very often united in the strictest intimacies, as the lighter kinds of woods are the most closely glued together.

Glory relaxes often and debilitates the mind; censure stimulates and contracts,--both to an extreme. Simple fame is, perhaps, the proper medium.

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.

Health is beauty, and the most perfect health is the most perfect beauty.

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.

I have been formerly so silly as to hope that every servant I had might be made a friend; I am now convinced that the nature of servitude generally bears a contrary tendency. People's characters are to be chiefly collected from their education and place in life; birth itself does but little.

I know not whether increasing years do not cause us to esteem fewer people and to bear with more.

I trimmed my lamp, consumed the midnight oil.

Immoderate assurance is perfect licentiousness.

In a heavy oppressive atmosphere, when the spirits sink too low, the best cordial is to read over all the letters of one's friends.

In designing a house and gardens, it is happy when there is an opportunity of maintaining a subordination of parts; the house so luckily place as to exhibit a view of the whole design. I have sometimes thought that there was room for it to resemble a epic or dramatic poem.

In every village marked with little spire, Embowered in trees, and hardly known to fame.

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.

It happens a little unluckily that the persons who have the most infinite contempt of money are the same that have the strongest appetite for the pleasures it procures.

It is true there is nothing displays a genius, I mean a quickness of genius, more than a dispute; as two diamonds, encountering, contribute to each other's luster. But perhaps the odds is much against the man of taste in this particular.

It seems with wit and good-nature, Utrum horum mavis accipe. Taste and good-nature are universally connected.

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.

Learning, like money, may be of so base a coin as to be utterly void of use.

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.

Let the gulled fool the toil of war pursue, where bleed the many to enrich the few.

Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent.

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

Love can be founded upon Nature only.

Love is a pleasing but a various clime.

May I always have a heart superior, with economy suitable, to my fortune.

Men are sometimes accused of pride, merely because their accusers would be proud themselves were they in their places.

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.

Misers, as death approaches, are heaping up a chest of reasons to stand in more awe of him.

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.

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

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

Nothing is certain in London but expense.

Nothing is sure in London, except expense.

Offensive objects, at a proper distance, acquire even a degree of beauty.

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

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

People can commend the weather without envy.

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.

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

Reserve is no more essentially connected with understanding than a church organ with devotion, or wine with good-nature.

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

Taste and good-nature are universally connected.

Taste is pursued at a less expense than fashion.

Thanks, oftenest obtrusive.

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.

The eye must be easy, before it can be pleased.

The fund of sensible discourse is limited; that of jest and badinerie is infinite.

The lowest people are generally the first to find fault with show or equipage; especially that of a person lately emerged from his obscurity. They never once consider that he is breaking the ice for themselves.

The works of a person that begin immediately to decay, while those of him who plants begin directly to improve. In this, planting promises a more lasting pleasure than building; which, were it to remain in equal perfection, would at best begin to moulder and want repairs in imagination. Now trees have a circumstance that suits our taste, and that is annual variety.

Theirs is the present who can praise the past.

There is a certain flimsiness of poetry which seems expedient in a song.

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.

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.

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."

Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. They are sensitive plants, which will not bear too familiar approaches.

What leads to unhappiness is making pleasure the chief aim.

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.

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.

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.

Whoe'er excels in what we prize, appears a hero in our eyes.

Wit is the refractory pupil of judgment.

Written on a Window of an Inn,