Laurence Sterne Quotes

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Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance, in quest of melancholy adventures--but I know not how it is, but I am never so perfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within me, as when I am entangled in them.

Laurence Sterne
I would go fifty miles on foot to kiss the hand of that man whose generous heart will give up the reins of his imagination into his Author's hands; be pleased, he knows not why, and cares not wherefore.

Laurence Sterne
There is no small degree of malicious craft in fixing upon a season to give a mark of enmity and ill-will: a word--a look, which at one time would make no impression, at another time wounds the heart, and, like a shaft flying with the wind, pierces deep, which, with its own natural force, would scarce have reached the object aimed at.

Laurence Sterne
Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators.

Laurence Sterne
People who are always taking care of their health, are like misers, who are hoarding up treasure which they have never spirit enough to enjoy.

Laurence Sterne
Some people pass through life soberly and religiously enough, without knowing way, or reasoning about it, but, from force of habit merely, go to heaven like fools.

Laurence Sterne
I have so great a contempt and detestation for meanness, that I could sooner make a friend of one who had committed murder, than of a person who could be capable, in any instance, of the former vice. Under meanness, I comprehend dishonesty; under dishonesty, ingratitude; under ingratitude, irreligion; and under this latter, every species of vice and immorality in human nature.

Laurence Sterne
Madness is consistent; which is more than can be said for poor reason. Whatever may be the ruling passion at the time continues equally so throughout the whole delirium, though it should last for life. Madmen are always constant in love; which no man in his senses ever was. Our passions and principles are steady in frenzy; but begin to shift and waver, as we return to reason.

Laurence Sterne
Attornies are to lawyers, what apothecaries are to physicians only that they do not deal in scruples.

Laurence Sterne
My father, whose way was to force every event in nature into an hypothesis, by which means never man crucified TRUTH at the rate he did.

Laurence Sterne
Before an affliction is digested, consolation ever comes too soon; and after it is digested, it comes too late.

Laurence Sterne
I often derive a peculiar satisfaction in conversing with the ancient and modern dead, — who yet live and speak excellently in their works. My neighbors think me often alone, — and yet at such times I am in company with more than five hundred mutes — each of whom, at my pleasure, communicates his ideas to me by dumb signs — quite as intelligently as any person living can do by uttering of words.

Laurence Sterne
Probably Providence has implanted peevishness and ill-temper in sick and old persons, in compassion to the friends or relations who are to survive; as it must naturally lessen the concern they might otherwise feel for their loss.

Laurence Sterne
The cells are broke loose one into another, and the blood, and the lymph, and the nervous juices, with the fix'd and volatile salts, are all jumbled into one mass — good g — ! everything turns round in it like a thousand whirlpools...

Laurence Sterne
Vain science! Thou assisted us in no case of this kind, and thou puzzlest us in everyone.

Laurence Sterne
Tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes, thou hast got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so.

Laurence Sterne
I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pestered the world ever convince me to the contrary.

Laurence Sterne
An atheist is more reclaimable than a papist, as ignorance is sooner cured than superstition.

Laurence Sterne
We may imitate the Deity in all His attributes; but mercy is the only one in which we can pretend to equal Him. We cannot, indeed, give like God; but surely we may forgive like Him.

Laurence Sterne
I think that science may be styled the knowledge of universals, or abstract wisdom; and art is science reduced to practice - or science is reason, and art the mechanism of it - and may be called practical science. Science, in fine, is the theorem, and art the problem.

Laurence Sterne
There is no such thing as real happiness in life. The justest definition that was ever given of it was "a tranquil acquiescence under an agreeable delusion"--I forget where.

Laurence Sterne
Simplicity is the great friend to nature, and if I would be proud of anything in this silly world, it should be of this honest alliance.

Laurence Sterne
A man cannot dress, but his ideas get cloath'd at the same time.

Laurence Sterne
The truth and regularity of a character is not, in justice, to be looked upon as broken, from any one single act or omission which may seem a contradiction to it:Mthe best of men appear sometimes to be strange compounds of contradictory qualities.

Laurence Sterne
Always carry it in thy mind, and act upon it, as a sure maxim: "That women are timid:" And 'tis well they are--else there would beno dealing with them.

Laurence Sterne
If there is an evil in this world, it is sorrow and heaviness of heart. The loss of goods, of health, of coronets and mitres, is only evil as they occasion sorrow; take that out, the rest is fancy, and dwelleth only in the head of man.

Laurence Sterne
The most affluent may be stripped of all, and find his worldly comforts, like so many withered leaves, dropping from him.

Laurence Sterne
The mind should be accustomed to make wise reflections, and draw curious conclusions as it goes along; the habitude of which made Pliny the Younger affirm that he never read book so bad but he drew some profit from it.

Laurence Sterne
Writings may be compared to wine. Sense is the strength, but wit the flavor.

Laurence Sterne
To have the fear of God before our eyes, and, in our mutual dealings with each other, to govern our actions by the eternal measures of right and wrong:MThe first of these will comprehend the duties of religion;Mthe second, those of morality, which are so inseparably connected together, that you cannot divide these two tableswithout breaking and mutually destroying them both.

Laurence Sterne