Top 100 Laurence Sterne Quotes

#1. If thou art rich, then show the greatness of thy fortune; or what is better, the greatness of thy soul, in the meekness of thy conversation; condescend to men of low estate, support the distressed, and patronize the neglected. Be great.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #126539
#2. Surely, 'tis one step towards acting well, to think worthily of our nature; and as in common life, the way to make a man honest, is, to suppose him soso here, to set some value upon ourselves, enables us to support the characterof generosity and virtue.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #140555
#3. When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,
or, in other words, when his HOBBY-HORSE grows head- strong,
farewell cool reason and fair discretion.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #155451
#4. I know there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people in it, who are no readers at all, - who find themselves ill at ease, unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of every thing which concerns you.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #160790
#5. Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of Pensions and Grenadiers?

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #185617
#6. It is sweet to feel by what fine spun threads our affections are drawn together.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #191519
#7. Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #193999
#8. What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within the span of his little life by him who interests his heart in everything.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #240701
#9. Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #251723
#10. We get forwards in the world not so much by doing services, as receiving them: you take a withering twig, and put it in the ground; and then you water it, because you have planted it.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #252802
#11. The sad vicissitude of things.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #252840
#12. So fruitful is slander in variety of expedients to satiate as well as disguise itself. But if these smoother weapons cut so sore, what shall we say of open and unblushing scandal, subjected to no caution, tied down to no restraints?

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #287888
#13. If time, like money, could be laid by while one was not using it, there might be some excuse for the idleness of half of the world, but yet not a full one. For even this would be such an economy as the living on a principal sum, without making it purchase interest.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #345479
#14. We don't love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we have done them

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #352938
#15. Men tire themselves in the pursuit of sleep.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #374545
#16. 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

Laurence Sterne Quotes #395990
#17. The proper education of poor children [is] the ground-work of almost every other kind of charity ... Without this foundation firstlaid, how much kindnessis unavoidably cast away?

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #426887
#18. Heat is in proportion to the want of true knowledge.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #443050
#19. Solomon'sexcess became an insult upon the privileges of mankind; for by the same plan of luxury, which made it necessary to have forty thousand stalls of horses,
he had unfortunately miscalculated his other wants, and so had seven hundred wives ...
Wise
deluded man!

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #451515
#20. We all cry out that the world is corrupt,
and I fear too justly,
but we never reflect, what we have to thank for it, and that itis our open countenance of vice, which gives the lye to our private censures of it, which is its chief protection and encouragement.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #458281
#21. Any one may do a casual act of good-nature; but a continuation of them shows it a part of the temperament.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #490128
#22. Keep away from the fire!

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #521664
#23. A man cannot dress, but his ideas get cloath'd at the same time.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #524787
#24. One may as well be asleep as to read for anything but to improve his mind and morals, and regulate his conduct.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #536380
#25. There is not a greater paradox in nature,
than that so good a religion [as Christianity] should be no better recommended by its professors.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #537744
#26. 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

Laurence Sterne Quotes #551830
#27. I know as well as any one, [the devil] is an adversary, whom if we resist, he will fly from us
but I seldom resist him at all; from a terror, that though I may conquer, I may still get a hurt in the combat
soinstead of thinking to make him fly, I generally fly myself.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #557224
#28. In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #563926
#29. Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question?

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #581632
#30. Now don't let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the oaths we make free with in this land of liberty of ours are our own; and because we have the spirit to swear them, - imagine that we have had the wit to invent them too.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #583853
#31. There is such a torture, happily unknown to ancient tyranny, as talking a man to death. Marcus Aurelius advises to assent readily to great talkers
in hopes, I suppose, to put an end to the argument.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #589636
#32. Learning is the dictionary, but sense the grammar of science.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #615365
#33. I am sick as a horse.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #628022
#34. Before an affliction is digested, consolation ever comes too soon; and after it is digested, it comes too late.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #628582
#35. [I have] been in love with one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so, till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #643315
#36. How many thousands of [lives] are there every year that comes cast away, (in all civilized countries at least)
and consider'd asnothing but common air, in competition of an hypothesis.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #645169
#37. How frequently is the honesty and integrity of a man disposed of by a smile or shrug! How many good and generous actions have been sunk into oblivion by a distrustful look, or stamped With the imputation of proceeding from bad motives, by a mysterious and seasonable whisper!

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #679097
#38. The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #695223
#39. Titles of honor are like the impressions on coins, which add no value to gold or silver, but only render brass current.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #697560
#40. Alas, poor YORICK!

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #702313
#41. When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the judgment a world of pains.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #704740
#42. Respect for ourselves guides our morals; respect for others guides our manners

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #721762
#43. 'Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause, and of obstinacy in a bad one.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #728602
#44. Dear sensibility! Source inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! Eternal fountain of our feelings! 'tis here I trace thee and this is thy divinity which stirs within me ... All comes from thee, great-great SENSORIUM of the world!

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #745838
#45. Only the brave know how to forgive ... a coward never forgave; it is not in his nature.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #769972
#46. An atheist is more reclaimable than a papist, as ignorance is sooner cured than superstition.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #778210
#47. Precedents are the disgrace of legislation. They are not wanted to justify right measures, are absolutely insufficient to excuse wrong ones. They can only be useful to heralds, dancing masters, and gentlemen ushers.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #784091
#48. So much of motion, is so much of life, and so much of joy, and to stand still, or get on but slowly, is death and the devil.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #807651
#49. We are born to trouble; and we may depend upon it, whilst we live in this world, we shall have it, though with intermissions.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #834707
#50. Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #845579
#51. Do you understand the theory of that affair? replied my father.
Not I, quoth my uncle.
- But you have some ideas, said my father, of what you talk about.
No more than my horse, replied my uncle Toby.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #881367
#52. - My brother Toby, quoth she, is going to be married to Mrs. Wadman.
- Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie diagonally in his bed again as long as he lives.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #889922
#53. A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own size, take my word, is a dwarf in more articles than one.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #925622
#54. Is it not an amazing thing, that men shall attempt to investigate the mystery of the redemption, when, at the same time that it is propounded to us as an article of faith solely, we are told that "the very angels have desired to pry into it in vain"?

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #946184
#55. If a man has a right to be proud of anything, it is of a good action done as it ought to be, without any base interest lurking at the bottom of it.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #966466
#56. For every ten jokes - thou hast got an hundred enemies ...

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #997371
#57. The most affluent may be stripped of all, and find his worldly comforts, like so many withered leaves, dropping from him.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1036317
#58. There is one sweet lenitive at least for evils, which nature holds out; so I took it kindly at her hands, and fell asleep.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1050596
#59. Whatever stress some may lay upon it, a death-bed repentance is but a weak and slender plank to trust our all on.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1059477
#60. People who overly take care of their health are like misers. They hoard up a treasure which they never enjoy.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1103856
#61. 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

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1141477
#62. It is not in the power of every one to taste humor, however he may wish it; it is the gift of God! and a true feeler always brings half the entertainment along with him.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1160044
#63. Keyholes are the occasions of more sin and wickedness, than all other holes in this world put together.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1183964
#64. There are few instances of the exercise of particular virtues which seem harder to attain to, or which appear more amiable and engaging in themselves, than those of moderation and the forgiveness of injuries.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1201435
#65. The world is ashamed of being virtuous.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1226827
#66. Great is the power of Eloquence; but never is it so great as when it pleads along with nature, and the culprit is a child strayed from his duty, and returned to it again with tears.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1236306
#67. Let love therefore be what it will, my Uncle Toby fell into it - And possibly, gentle reader, with such a temptation so wouldst thou: For never did thy eyes behold, or thy concupiscence covet, anything in this world more concupiscible than widow Wadman.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1237464
#68. It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, that it assimulates every thing to itself as proper nourishment; and, from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the stronger by every thing you see, hear, read, or understand.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1245625
#69. Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1283711
#70. Hail! the small courtesies of life, for smooth do ye make the road of it, like grace and beauty, which beget inclinations to love at first sight; it is ye who open the door and let the stranger in.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1332675
#71. 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

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1352985
#72. It appears an extraordinary thing to me, that since there is such a diabolical spirit in the depravity of human nature, as persecution for difference of opinion in religious tenets, there never happened to be any inquisition, any auto da fe, any crusade, among the Pagans.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1390108
#73. Our passion and principals are constantly in a frenzy, but begin to shift and waver, as we return to reason.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1392971
#74. The improbability of a malicious story serves but to help forward the currency of it, because it increases the scandal. So that, in such instances, the world is like the pious St. Austin, who said he believed some things because they were absurd and impossible.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1415073
#75. Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery," said I, "still thou art a bitter draught.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1428866
#76. Religion which lays so many restraints upon us, is a troublesome companion to those who will lay no restraints upon themselves.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1429808
#77. 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

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1440409
#78. In a word, my work is digressive, and it is progressive too, - and at the same time.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1462040
#79. Cursed luck! - said he, biting his lip as he shut the door, - for man to be master of one of the finest chains of reasoning in nature, - and have a wife at the same time with such a head-piece, that he cannot hang up a single inference within side of it, to save his soul from destruction.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1464817
#80. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1473055
#81. And what of this new book the whole world makes such a rout about?
Oh ! 'tis out of all plumb, my lord,
quite an irregular thing!

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1478869
#82. I'll not hurt thee, says Uncle Toby, rising with the fly in his hand. Go, he says, opening the window to let it escape. Why should I hurt thee? This world is surely wide enough to hold both thee and me.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1502426
#83. A man's body and his mind, with the utmost reverence to both I speak it, are exactly like a jerkin and a jerkin's lining; rumple the one, you rumple the other.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1520913
#84. The pulsations of the arteries along my fingers pressing across hers, told her what was passing within me:
she look'd down - a silence of some moments followed.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1573887
#85. What persons are by starts they are by nature.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1575653
#86. I live in a constant endeavor to fence against the infirmities of ill health, and other evils of life, by mirth; being firmly persuaded that every time a man smiles, but much more when he laughs, it adds some thing to his fragment of life.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1582716
#87. The best hearts are ever the bravest.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1587655
#88. Certainly it was ordained as a scourge upon the pride of human wisdom, that the wisest of us all, should thus outwit ourselves, and eternally forego our purposes in the intemperate act of pursuing them.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1591755
#89. The director is responsible for interpreting the playwright's work through the cast with the help of the staff. It is the director's artistic concept of the play that the cast, staff, and crew work to obtain.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1610403
#90. The more tickets you have in a lottery, the worse your chance. And it is the same of virtues, in the lottery of life.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1616585
#91. In all unmerciful actions, the worst of men pay this compliment at least to humanity, as to endeavour to wear as much of the appearance of it, as the case will well let them.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1681310
#92. I wish my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me;

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1708823
#93. Heaven be their resource who have no other but the charity of the world, the stock of which, I fear, is no way sufficient for the many great claims which are hourly made upon it.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1718086
#94. There is nothing so awkward as courting a woman whilst she is making sausages.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1721143
#95. "They order," said I, "this matter better in France."

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1727421
#96. 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

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1784516
#97. O blessed Health! thou art above all gold and treasure; 'tis thou who enlargest the soul, and openest all its powers to receive instruction, and to relish virtue. He that has thee has little more to wish for, and he that is so wretched as to want thee, wants everything with thee.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1787871
#98. All womankind, from the highest to the lowest love jokes; the difficulty is to know how they choose to have them cut; and there is no knowing that, but by trying, as we do with our artillery in the field, by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the mark.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1803314
#99. The great end of all religionis to purify our hearts
and conquer our passions
and in a word, to make us wiser and better men
better neighbours
better citizens
and better servants of GOD.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1817036
#100. We often think ourselves inconsistent creatures, when we are the furthest from it, and all the variety of shapes and contradictory appearances we put on, are in truth but so many different attempts to gratify the same governing appetite.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Quotes #1850686

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