Quotes from William Shenstone

Love can be founded upon Nature only.

Love is a pleasing but a various clime.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.

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.

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

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

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.