William Shenstone Quotes

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

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

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

“Every good poet includes a critic; the reverse will not hold.”

“For seldom shall she hear a tale
So sad, so tender, and so true.”

“There seem near as many people that want passion as want reason.”

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

“Prudent men should lock up their motives, giving only their intimates a key.”

“Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow,
Emblem right meet of decency does yield.”

“A man of remarkable genius may afford to pass by a piece of wit, if it happens to border on abuse. A little genius is obliged to catch at every witticism indiscriminately.”

“Whoe'er has traveled 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.”

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

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

“I have found out a gift for my fair;
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed.”

“Love is a pleasing but a various clime.”

“A little bench of heedless bishops here,
And there a chancellor in embryo.”

“Pun-provoking thyme.”

“While we labour to subdue our passions, we should take care not to extinguish them. Subduing our passions, is disengaging ourselves from the world; to which however, Whilst we reside in it, we must always bear relation; and we may detach ourselves to such a degree as to pass an useless and insipid life, which we were not meant to do. Our existence here is at least one part of a system.”