Laurence Sterne > Quotes

“Respect for ourselves guides our morals; respect for others guides our manners”
― Laurence Sterne

“You can always tell a real friend; when you've made a fool of yourself, he doesn't feel you've done a permanent job.”
― Laurence Sterne

“Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.”
― Laurence Sterne

“What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life by him who interests himself in everything.”
― Laurence Sterne

“Digressions incontestably are the sunshine; they are the life, the soul of reading.”
― Laurence Sterne

“I begin with writing the first
sentence ---- and trusting to Almighty
God for the second.
”
― Laurence Sterne

“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.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“« Je suis persuadé que chaque fois qu'un homme sourit et mieux encore lorsqu'il rit, il ajoute quelque chose à la durée de sa vie.»”
― Laurence Sterne, Vie et opinions de Tristram Shandy, gentilhomme

“Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine, the life, the soul of reading! Take them out and one cold eternal winter would reign in every page. Restore them to the writer - he steps forth like a bridegroom, bids them all-hail, brings in variety and forbids the appetite to fail.”
― Laurence Sterne

“Keyholes are the occasions of more sin and wickedness, than all other holes in this world put together.”
― Laurence Sterne

“What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this span of life by him who interests his heart in everything.”
― Laurence Sterne

“Human nature is the same in all professions.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“Memiliki rasa hormat pada diri sendiri akan membimbing moral kita,
Memiliki rasa hormat terhadap orang lain akan menjaga sikap sopan santun kita.”
― Laurence Sterne

“...For every ten jokes - thou hast got an hundred enemies...”
― Laurence Sterne

“Pain and pleasure, like light and darkness, succeed each other.”
― 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, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“I have a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very nonsensically, and I will not balk my fancy.--Accordingly I set off thus:”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“People who are always taking care of their health are like misers, who are hoarding a treasure which they have never spirit enough to enjoy.”
― 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

“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, A Sentimental Journey

“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, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“Time wastes too fast : every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen ; the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny! than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more -- every thing presses on -- whilst thou are twisting that lock, -- see! it grows grey ; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make!”
― Laurence Sterne

“Alas, poor YORICK!”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“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, Tristram Shandy

“Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“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, A Sentimental Journey