Laurence Sterne Quotes

Almost one half of our time is spent in telling and hearing evil of one another ... and every hour brings forth something strange and terrible to fill up our discourse and our astonishment.

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.

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.

When the affections so kindly break loose, Joy, is another name for Religion.

When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the judgment a world of pains.

For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.

Go, poor devil, get thee gone! Why should I hurt thee? This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

"They order," said I, "this matter better in France."

A man should know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad.

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.

People who drink too much, health, and greedy. Hoard a treasure we do not like.

To write a book is for all the world like humming a song.

Learning is the dictionary, but sense the grammar of science.

But this is neither here nor there why do I mention it? Ask my pen, it governs me, I govern not it.

I am persuaded ... that both man and woman bear pain or sorrow, (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a horizontal position.

Men tire themselves in the pursuit of sleep.

I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, 'Tis all barren--and so it is; and so is all the world to him who will not cultivate the fruits it offers.

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?

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.

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.

If ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another.

I am sick as a horse.

Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question?

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

The best friends in the world may differ sometimes.

Philosophy has a fine saying for everything.-For Death it has an entire set.

To write a book is for all the world like humming a song—be but in tune with yourself, madam, 'tis no matter how high or how low you take it.

The history of a soldier's wound beguiles the pain of it.

When the precipitancy of a man's wishes hurries on his ideas ninety times faster than the vehicle he rides in--woe be to truth!

There is not a greater paradox in nature,--than that so good a religion [as Christianity] should be no better recommended by its professors.

Digressions incontestably are the sunshine; they are the life, the soul of reading.

Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of Pensions and Grenadiers?

The world is ashamed of being virtuous.

What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within the span of his little life by him who interests his heart in everything.

We don't love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we have done them

—all I can say of the matter, is—That he has either a pumkin for his head—or a pippin for his heart, —and whenever he is dissected 'twill be found so.

It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singular blessings of my life, to be almost every hour of it miserably in love with some one....

Great wits jump

Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world - though the cant of hypocrites ihay be the worst - the cant of criticism is the most tormenting.

Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world tho' the cant of hypocrites may be the worst the cant of criticism is the most tormenting.

Only the brave know how to forgive. ... A coward never forgave it is not in his nature.

Every time a man smiles and much more when he laughs it adds something to his fragment of life.

Pain and pleasure like light and darkness succeed each other.

A man cannot dress without his ideas get clothed at the same time.

Philosophy has a fine saying for everything - for Death it has an entire set.

This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

Writing when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.

Only the brave know how to forgive... a coward never forgave it is not in his nature.

Only the brave know how to forgive it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at.