152 Quotes by William Shenstone

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.

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.

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.

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

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

What leads to unhappiness, is making pleasure the chief aim.

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

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