Laurence Sterne Quotes

In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.

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.

Religion which lays so many restraints upon us, is a troublesome companion to those who will lay no restraints upon themselves.

In a word, my work is digressive, and it is progressive too, - and at the same time.

- for though he never after went to the house, yet he never met Bridget in the village, but he would either nod or wink, or smile, or look kindly at her, - or (as circumstances directed), he would shake her by the hand, - or ask her lovingly how she did, - or would give her a ribban, - and now and then, though never but when it could be done with decorum, would give Bridget a -

There is no definitive list of the duties of a stage manager that is applicable to all theaters and staging environments. Regardless of specific duties, however, the stage manager is the individual who accepts responsibility for the smooth running of rehearsals and performances, on stage and backstage.

Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?

I was acquainted once with a gallant soldier who assured me that his only measure of courage was this: upon the first fire, in an engagement, he immediately looked upon himself as a dead man. He then bravely fought out the remainder of the day, perfectly regardless of all manner of danger, as becomes a dead man to be. So that all the life or limbs he carried back again to his tent he reckoned as clear gains, or, as he himself expressed it, so much out of the fire.

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

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.

But mark, madam, we live amongst riddles and mysteries
the most obvious things, which come in our way, have dark sides, which thequickest sight cannot penetrate into; and even the clearest and most exalted understandings amongst us find ourselves puzzled and at a loss in almost every cranny of nature's works.

One may as well be asleep as to read for anything but to improve his mind and morals, and regulate his conduct.

Every obstruction of the course of justice,
is a door opened to betray society, and bereave us of those blessings which it has inview ... It is a strange way of doing honour to God, to screen actions which are a disgrace to humanity.

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;

Death opens the gate of fame, and shuts the gate of envy after it; it unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman's task into another man's hand.

To saya man is fallen in love,or that he is deeply in love,or up to the ears in love,and sometimes even over head and ears in it,carries an idiomatical kind of implication, that love is a thing below a man:this is recurring again to Plato's opinion, which, with all his divinityship,I hold to be damnable and heretical:and so much for that. Let love therefore be what it will,my uncleToby fell into it.

Shall we be destined to the days of eternity, on holy-days, as well as working-days, to be showing the relics of learning, as monks do the relics of their saints - without working one - one single miracle with them?

It is sweet to feel by what fine spun threads our affections are drawn together.

The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it.

I have undertaken, you see, to write not only my life, but my opinions also; hoping and expecting that your knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the one, would give you a better relish for the other: As you proceed further with me, the slight acquaintance which is now beginning betwixt us, will grow into familiarity; and that, unless one of us is in fault, will terminate in friendship.

A coward never forgives.

Vanity bids all her sons be brave, and all her daughters chaste and courteous.

What were his views in this, and in every other action of his life, - or rather what were the opinions which floated in the brains of other people concerning it, was a thought which too much floated in his own, and too often broke in upon his rest, when he should have been sound asleep.

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

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.

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.

- 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.

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

Respect for ourselves guides our morals; respect for others guides our manners

Keep away from the fire!

The best hearts are ever the bravest.

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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

Now or never was the time.

Endless is the search of truth.

Patience cannot remove, but it can always dignify and alleviate, misfortune.

I wish either 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; had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing; that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;-and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost: Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly, I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me.

Now - Ten thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand (for matter and motion are infinite) are the ways by which a hat may be dropped upon the ground, without any effect. - Had he flung it, or thrown it, or cast it, or skimmed it, or squirted, or let it slip or fall in any possible direction under heaven, - or in the best direction that could be given to it, - had he dropped it like a goose - like a puppy - like an ass - or in doing it, or even after he had done, had he looked like a fool, - like a ninny - like a nicompoop - it had fail'd, and the effect upon the heart had been lost.

Heat is in proportion to the want of true knowledge.

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!

The best friends in the world may differ sometimes.

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.

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

If death, said my father, reasoning with himself, is nothing but the separation of the soul from the body;
and if it is true that people can walk about and do their business without brains,
then certes the soul does not inhabit there.

Solitude is the best nurse of wisdom.

I define a nose, as follows, - intreating only beforehand, and beseeching my readers, both male and female, of what age, complexion, and condition soever, for the love of God and their own souls, to guard against the temptations and suggestions of the devil, and suffer him by no art or wile to put any other ideas into their minds, than what I put into my definition. - For by the word Nose, throughout all this long chapter of noses, and in every other part of my work, where the word Nose occurs, - I declare, by that word I mean a Nose, and nothing more, or less.

I like subordination, quoth my uncle Toby...

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.

My father, you must know, who was originally a Turkey merchant, but had left off business for some years, in order to retire to, and die upon, his paternal estate in the county of - - , was, I believe, one of the most regular men in every thing he did, whether 'twas matter of business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen of this extreme exactness of his, to which he was in truth a slave, he had made it a rule for many years of his life, - on the first Sunday-night of every month throughout the whole year, - as certain as ever the Sunday-night came, - to wind up a large house-clock, which we had standing on the back-stairs head, with his own hands: - And being somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age at the time I have been speaking of, - he had likewise gradually brought some other little family concernments to the same period, in order, as he would often say to my uncle Toby, to get them all out of the way at one time, and be no more plagued and pestered with them the rest of the month.

It was attended but with one misfortune, which, in a great measure, fell upon myself, and the effects of which I fear I shall carry with me to my grave; namely, that from an unhappy association of ideas, which have no connection in nature, it so fell out at length, that my poor mother could never hear the said clock wound up, - but the thoughts of some other things unavoidably popped into her head.

- Now my father had a way, a little like that of Job's (in case there ever was such a man - if not, there's an end of the matter.
Though, by the bye, because your learned men find some difficulty in fixing the precise aera in which so great a man lived; - whether, for instance, before or after the patriarchs, &c. - to vote, therefore, that he never lived at all, is a little cruel, - 'tis not doing as they would be done by - happen that as it - My father, I say, had a way, when things went extremely wrong with him, especially upon the first sally of his impatience - of wondering why he was begot, - wishing himself dead; - sometimes worse: -

Was all uniformity; - he was systematical, and, like all systematic reasoners, he would move both heaven and earth, and twist and torture every thing in nature to support his hypothesis.

Plutarch has a fine expression, with regard to some woman of learning, humility, and virtue;
that her ornaments were such as might be purchased without money, and would render any woman's life both glorious and happy.

A good simile,
as concise as a king's declaration of love.

Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.

The most accomplished way of using books is to serve them as some people do lords; learn their titles and then brag of their acquaintance.

So often has my judgment deceived me in my life, that I always suspect it, right or wrong,
at least I am seldom hot upon cold subjects. For all this, I reverence truth as much as any body; andif a man will but take me by the hand, and go quietly and search for itI'll go to the world's end with him:MBut I hate disputes.

People who overly take care of their health are like misers. They hoard up a treasure which they never enjoy.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Pain and pleasure, like light and darkness, succeed each other.

In part of Lord Kames' Elements of Criticism, he says that "music improves the relish of a banquet." That I deny,
any more than painting might do. They may both be additional pleasures, as well as conversation is, but are perfectly distinct notices; and cannot, with the least propriety, be said to mix or blend with the repast, as none of them serve to raise the flavor of the wine, the sauce, the meat, or help to quicken appetite. But music and painting both add a spirit to devotion, and elevate the ardor.

I am this month one whole year older than I was this time twelve-month; and having got, as you perceive, almost into the middle of my fourth volume - and no farther than to my first day's life - 'tis demonstrative that I have three hundred and sixty-four days more life to write just now, than when I first set out; so that instead of advancing, as a common writer, in my work with what I have been doing at it - on the contrary, I am just thrown so many volumes back -

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.

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

There is a plain distinction to be made betwixt pleasure and happiness. For tho' there can be no happiness without pleasure
yet the converse of the proposition will not hold true.
We are so made, that from the common gratifications of our appetites, and the impressions of a thousand objects, we snatch the one, like a transient gleam, without being suffered to taste the other.

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.

I am persuaded that every time a man smiles - but much more so when he laughs - it adds something to this fragment of life.

There is nothing so awkward as courting a woman whilst she is making sausages.

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

So that whether the pain of a wound in the groin (caeteris paribus) is greater than the pain of a wound in the knee - or
Whether the pain of a wound in the knee is not greater than the pain of a wound in the groin - are points which to this day remain unsettled.

The histories of the lives and fortunes of men are full of instances of this nature,
where favorable times and lucky accidents have done for them, what wisdom or skill could not.

The accusing spirit, which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the recording angel as he wrote it down dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever.

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.

Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be interrupted in a story ...

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

I once asked a hermit in Italy how he could venture to live alone, in a single cottage, on the top of a mountain, a mile from any habitation? He replied, that Providence was his next-door neighbor.

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

Look into the world
how often do you behold a sordid wretch, whose straight heart is open to no man's affliction, taking shelterbehind an appearance of piety, and putting on the garb of religion, which none but the merciful and compassionate have a title to wear.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Human nature is the same in all professions.

Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts can argue down or mask your passions
tell me, what trespass is it that man should have them? ... If nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece
must the whole web be rent in drawing them out?

Alas! if the principles of contentment are not within us, the height of station and worldly grandeur will as soon add a cubit to a man's stature as to his happiness.

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.

True Shandeism, think what you will against it, opens the heart and lungs, and like all those affections which partake of its nature, it forces the blood and other vital fluids of the body to run freely thro' its channels, and makes the wheel of life run long and chearfully round.

An inward sincerity will of course influence the outward deportment; but where the one is wanting, there is great reason to suspect the absence of the other.

I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with a voice which I took to be of a child, which complained "it could not get out." - I look'd up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, or child, I went out without further attention.
In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage. - "I can't get out - I can't get out," said the starling.
I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approach'd it, with the same lamentation of its captivity. - "I can't get out," said the starling. - God help thee! said I, but I'll let thee out, cost what it will; so I turn'd about the cage to get to the door; it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces. - I took both hands to it.
The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis, press'd his breast against it, as if impatient. - I fear, poor creature! said I, I cannot set thee at liberty. - "No," said the starling - "I can't get out - I can't get out," said the starling.

The chaste mind, like a polished plane, may admit foul thoughts, without receiving their tincture.

... so long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him,
pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?

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.