152 Quotes by William Shenstone

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

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

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.

The making presents to a lady one addresses is like throwing armor into an enemy’s camp, with a resolution to recover it.

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.

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

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

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.”

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