Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture, as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle-sized are alone entangled in it. – William Shenstone
Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world. – William Shenstone
The best time to frame an answer to the letters of a friend, is the moment you receive them. Then the warmth of friendship, and the intelligence received, most forcibly cooperate. – William Shenstone
A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood. – William Shenstone
There is a homely directness about these rustic apothegms which makes them far more palatable than the strained and sophisticated epigrams of the characters of Oscar Wilde’s plays, who are ever striving strenuously to dazzle us with verbal pyrotechnics. – Brander Matthews, “American Aphorisms,” Harper’s Magazine, November 1915,