William Shenstonewas an English poet and one of the earliest practitioners of landscape gardening through the development of his estate, The Leasowes... (wikipedia)
The fund of sensible discourse is limited; that of jest and badinerie is infinite.
I trimmed my lamp, consumed the midnight oil.
In a heavy oppressive atmosphere, when the spirits sink too low, the best cordial is to read over all the letters of one's friends.
Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent.
The difference there is betwixt honor and honesty seems to be chiefly the motive; the mere honest man does that from duty which the man of honor does for the sake of character.
The love of popularity seems little else than the love of being beloved; and is only blamable when a person aims at the affections of a people by means in appearance honest, but in their end pernicious and destructive.
Prudent men lock up their motives, letting familiars have a key to their hearts, as to their garden.
Theirs is the present who can praise the past.
I am thankful that my name in obnoxious to no pun.
I know not whether increasing years do not cause us to esteem fewer people and to bear with more.
It seems with wit and good-nature, Utrum horum mavis accipe. Taste and good-nature are universally connected.
In every village marked with little spire, Embowered in trees, and hardly known to fame.
The most reserved of men, that will not exchange two syllables together in an English coffee-house, should they meet at Ispahan, would drink sherbet and eat a mess of rice together.
Taste and good-nature are universally connected.
Taste is pursued at a less expense than fashion.
Modesty makes large amends for the pain it gives those who labor under it, by the prejudice it affords every worthy person in their favor.
Thanks, oftenest obtrusive.
Trifles discover a character, more than actions of importance.
A large, branching, aged oak is perhaps the most venerable of all inanimate objects.
Persons are oftentimes misled in regard to their choice of dress by attending to the beauty of colors, rather than selecting such colors as may increase their own beauty.
It happens a little unluckily that the persons who have the most infinite contempt of money are the same that have the strongest appetite for the pleasures it procures.
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."
A statue in a garden is to be considered as one part of a scene or landscape.
Many persons, when exalted, assume an insolent humility, who behaved before with an insolent haughtiness.
Long sentences in a short composition are like large rooms in a little house.
Let the gulled fool the toil of war pursue, where bleed the many to enrich the few.
My banks they are furnish'd with bees, Whose murmur invites one to sleep.
Love can be founded upon Nature only.
It should seem that indolence itself would incline a person to be honest, as it requires infinitely greater pains and contrivance to be a knave.
Health is beauty, and the most perfect health is the most perfect beauty.
The weak and insipid white wine makes at length excellent vinegar.
Learning, like money, may be of so base a coin as to be utterly void of use; or, if sterling, may require good management to make it serve the purposes of sense or happiness.