William Shenstone

Health is beauty, and the most perfect health is the most perfect beauty.

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

The fund of sensible discourse is limited; that of jest and badinerie is infinite.

Second thoughts are oftentimes the very worst of all thoughts.

Independency may be found in comparative, as well as absolute abundance: I mean when a person contracts his desires within the limits of his fortune.

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

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

A fool and his words are soon parted; a man of genius and his money.

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

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.

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

Love can be founded upon nature only; or the appearance of it.

It is a miserable thing to love where one hates; and yet it is not inconsistent.

Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture, as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle size are alone entangled in.

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.

A large, branching, aged oak, is perhaps the most venerable of all inanimate objects.

Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent.

Sloth views the tow'rs of fame with envious eyes; Desirous still, still impotent to rise.

Theirs is the present who can praise the past.

Let the gull'd fool the toil of war pursue, Where bleed the many to enrich the few.

She pleas'd while distant, but, when near, she charm'd.

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.

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