William Shenstone

Immoderate assurance is perfect licentiousness.

— William Shenstone

Taste and good-nature are universally connected.

— William Shenstone

Nothing is sure in London, except expense.

— William Shenstone

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

— William Shenstone

People can commend the weather without envy.

— William Shenstone

Theirs is the present who can praise the past.

— William Shenstone

A fool and his words are soon parted.

— William Shenstone

Love can be founded upon Nature only.

— William Shenstone

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

— William Shenstone

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

— William Shenstone

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

— William Shenstone

Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.

— William Shenstone

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

— William Shenstone

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

— William Shenstone

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

— William Shenstone

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

— William Shenstone

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…

— William Shenstone

Flattery of the verbal kind is gross. In short, applause is of too coarse a nature to be swallowed in the gross,…

— William Shenstone

When self-interest inclines a man to print, he should consider that the purchaser expects a pennyworth for his penny, and has reason…

— William Shenstone

Learning, like money, may be of so base a coin as to be utterly void of use; or, if sterling, may require…

— William Shenstone

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

— William Shenstone

We may daily discover crowds acquire sufficient wealth to buy gentility, but very few that possess the virtues which ennoble human nature,…

— William Shenstone

Modesty makes large amends for the pain it gives those who labor under it, by the prejudice it affords every worthy person…

— William Shenstone

The lowest people are generally the first to find fault with show or equipage; especially that of a person lately emerged from…

— William Shenstone

There are no persons more solicitous about the preservation of rank than those who have no rank at all. Observe the humors…

— William Shenstone

What some people term Freedom is nothing else than a liberty of saying and doing disagreeable things. It is but carrying the…

— William Shenstone

The love of popularity seems little else than the love of being beloved; and is only blamable when a person aims at…

— William Shenstone

There would not be any absolute necessity for reserve if the world were honest; yet even then it would prove expedient. For,…

— William Shenstone

In designing a house and gardens, it is happy when there is an opportunity of maintaining a subordination of parts; the house…

— William Shenstone

Anger and the thirst of revenge are a kind of fever; fighting and lawsuits, bleeding,--at least, an evacuation. The latter occasions a…

— William Shenstone

However, I think a plain space near the eye gives it a kind of liberty it loves; and then the picture, whether…

— William Shenstone

The works of a person that begin immediately to decay, while those of him who plants begin directly to improve. In this,…

— William Shenstone

I trimmed my lamp, consumed the midnight oil.

— William Shenstone

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

— William Shenstone

Thanks, oftenest obtrusive.

— William Shenstone

Nothing is certain in London but expense.

— William Shenstone

Wit is the refractory pupil of judgment.

— William Shenstone

Taste is pursued at a less expense than fashion.

— William Shenstone

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

— William Shenstone

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

— William Shenstone