Laurence Sterne Quotes & Sayings

- 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 - — Laurence Sterne

The best hearts are ever the bravest. — Laurence Sterne

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

Did not Dr. Kunastrokius, that great man, at his leisure hours, take the greatest delight imaginable in combing of asses tails, and plucking the dead hairs out with his teeth, though he had tweezers always in his pocket? — Laurence Sterne

Lessons of wisdom have the most power over us when they capture the heart through the groundwork of a story, which engages the passions. — Laurence Sterne

The brave only know how to forgive. — Laurence Sterne

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

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

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. I declare, said I, clapping my hands chearily together, that was I in a desart, I would find out wherewith in it to call forth my affections - If I could not do better, I would fasten them upon some sweet myrtle, or seek some melancholy cypress to connect myself to - I would court their shade, and greet them kindly for their protection - I would cut my name upon them, and swear they were the loveliest trees throughout the desert: if their leaves wither'd, I would teach myself to mourn, and when they rejoiced, I would rejoice along with them. — Laurence Sterne

When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage - that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain. — Laurence Sterne

Ten cooks' shops! ... and all within three minutes' driving! one would think that all the cooks in the world ... had said - Come, let us all go live at Paris: the French love good eating - they are all gourmands - we shall rank high. — Laurence Sterne

The happiness of life may be greatly increased by small courtesies in which there is no parade, whose voice is too still to tease, and which manifest themselves by tender and affectionate looks, and little kind acts of attention. — Laurence Sterne

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

It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind; and what incredible weight they have in forming and governing our opinions, both of men and things, that trifles light as air shall waft a belief into the soul, and plant it so immovable within it, that Euclid's demonstrations, could they be brought to batter it in breach, should not all have power to overthrow it! — Laurence Sterne

... 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? — Laurence Sterne

Solitude is the best nurse of wisdom. — Laurence Sterne

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

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

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

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

But desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it. The — Laurence Sterne

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

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! — Laurence Sterne

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

What is the life of man! Is it not to shift from side to side? From sorrow to sorrow? To button up one cause of vexation! And unbutton another! — 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

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 - — Laurence Sterne

I know not whether the remark is to our honour or otherwise, that lessons of wisdom have never such power over us, as when they are wrought into the heart, through the ground-work of a story which engages the passions: Is it that we are like iron, and must first be heated before we can be wrought upon? — Laurence Sterne

The way to fame, is like the way to heaven,
through much tribulation. — Laurence Sterne

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. — Laurence Sterne

The insolence of base minds in success is boundless; and would scarce admit of a comparison, did not they themselves furnish us with one in the degrees of their abjection when evil returns upon them. — Laurence Sterne

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

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

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

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

Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas. — Laurence Sterne

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

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

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. — Laurence Sterne

Upon the present theological computation, ten souls must be lost for one that is saved. At which rate of reckoning, heaven can raise but its cohorts while hell commands its legions. From which sad account it would appear, that, though our Saviour had conquered death by the resurrection, he had not yet been able to overcome sin by the redemption. — Laurence Sterne

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

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

You can't make theater happen without actors. The actor is the central ingredient in making theater happen. Audiences may come to theaters to see the work of stage managers, directors and producers, but the only people who can communicate theater magic to audiences, through ideas and emotions, are the actors. They are the only ones who can communicate this by themselves, and if necessary, they can get along without you. But you can't make theater without the actor. — Laurence Sterne

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 ... — 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

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

Only the brave know how to forgive — Laurence Sterne

I could wish to spy the nakedness of their hearts, and through the different disguises of customs, climates, and religion, find out what is good in them, to fashion my own by. It is for this reason that I have not seen the Palais Royal - nor the facade of the Louvre - nor have attempted to swell the catalogues we have of pictures, statues, and churches - I conceive every fair being as a temple, and would rather enter in, and see the original drawings and loose sketches hung up in it, than the Transfiguration of Raphael itself. — Laurence Sterne

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

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

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. — Laurence Sterne

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

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

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. — Laurence Sterne

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

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. — Laurence Sterne

When my way is too rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get off it to some smooth velvet path which fancy has scattered over with rosebuds of delights; and, having taken a few turns in it, come back strengthened and refreshed. — Laurence Sterne

What persons are by starts they are by nature. — Laurence Sterne

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

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. — 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

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. — Laurence Sterne

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

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

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

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

The cast, staff, and crew of a live theater work together toward a common goal: a good performance. Thus, theater is necessarily a group effort. However, it is never a group effort of vague fellow committee members, but of associated autocrats-a playwright, a producer, a director, a stage manager, designers, and, above all, actors. Each accommodates the others, and may overlap others in function when necessary. But each autocrat assumes distinct responsibilities and accepts them completely. — Laurence Sterne

I like subordination, quoth my uncle Toby... — Laurence Sterne

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

When, to gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon that an ignorant and helpless creature shall be sacrificed, it is an easy matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed, to make a fire to offer it up with. — Laurence Sterne

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

Human nature is the same in all professions. — Laurence Sterne

The loneliness is the mother of wisdom. — Laurence Sterne

There are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman's pulse. — Laurence Sterne

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

It is a great pity but tis certain from every day's observation of man, that he may be set on fire like a candle, at either end provided there is a sufficient wick standing out. — Laurence Sterne

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

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

Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery," said I, "still thou art a bitter draught. — Laurence Sterne

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

There are a thousand unnoticed openings, continued my father, which let a penetrating eye at once into a man's soul; and I maintain it, added he, that a man of sense does not lay down his hat in coming into a room,
or take it up in going out of it, but something escapes, which discovers him. — Laurence Sterne

Conversation is a traffick; and if you enter into it, without some stock of knowledge, to ballance the account perpetually betwixtyou,
the trade drops at once: and this is the reasonwhy travellers have so little [good] conversation with natives,
owing to their [the natives'] suspicionthat there is nothing to be extracted from the conversationworth the trouble of their bad language. — Laurence Sterne

As monarchs have a right to call in the specie of a state, and raise its value, by their own impression; so are there certain prerogative geniuses, who are above plagiaries, who cannot be said to steal, but, from their improvement of a thought, rather to borrow it, and repay the commonwealth of letters with interest again; and may wore properly be said to adopt, than to kidnap a sentiment, by leaving it heir to their own fame. — Laurence Sterne

- 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: - — Laurence Sterne

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

Endless is the search of truth. — Laurence Sterne

First, whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better of his creed. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbors, and where they separate, depend upon it, 'Tis for no other cause but quietness sake. — Laurence Sterne

There are many ways of inducing sleep
the thinking of purling rills, or waving woods; reckoning of numbers; droppings from a wet sponge fixed over a brass pan, etc. But temperance and exercise answer much better than any of these succedaneums. — Laurence Sterne

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

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. — Laurence Sterne

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

A man who values a good night's rest will not lie down with enmity in his heart, if he can help it. — Laurence Sterne

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

The circumstances with which every thing in this world is begirt, give every thing in this world its size and shape;
and by tightening it, or relaxing it, this way or that, make the thing to be, what it is
great
little
good
bad
indifferent or not indifferent, just as the case happens. — Laurence Sterne

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

Every thing in this world, said my father, is big with jest,
and has wit in it, and instruction too,
if we can but find it out. — Laurence Sterne

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. — Laurence Sterne

Learning is the dictionary, but sense the grammar of science. — Laurence Sterne