The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
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Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between May 28 - October 3, 2025
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‘Do not despair, one of the thieves was saved; do not presume, one of the thieves was damned.’
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the short history of the novel (a genre that emerged in western literature only in Sterne’s day and may already be in rapid retreat)
Andrew
Rubbish. The novel started far earlier and will continue a lot longer. "Chaereas and Callirhoe" and "Satyrica", for instance, were probably first century CE.
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‘Ridiculum acri / Fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat Res’ (Ridicule often cuts hard knots more forcefully and effectively than gravity).
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That the HOMUNCULUS is created by the same hand,—engender’d
Andrew
Is this a masturbation joke?
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Alas, poor Y O R I C K!
Andrew
The black page should be here. Kindle misses it out.
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argued the matter with her like a christian,—like a heathen,—like a husband,—like a father,—like a patriot,—like a man:—My mother answered every thing only like a woman; which was a little hard upon her;—for as she could not assume and fight it out behind such a variety of characters,—’twas no fair match;—’twas seven to one.—What
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Andrew was something like a negative quantity in Algebra with him;---’twas worse, he said, than nothing.---
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Little boots
Andrew
Translation of Caligula in a discussion of names.
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Digressions, incontestably, are the sun-shine;——they are the life, the soul of reading;---take them out of this book for instance,--you might as well take the book along with them;—one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer;-----he steps forth like a bridegroom,3—bids
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There are others again, who will draw a man’s character from no other helps in the world, but merely from his evacuations;—but this often gives a very incorrect out-line,---unless,
Andrew
Gillian McKeith denounced as a fraud before she was born!
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He cross’d himself——Pugh!
Andrew
There should be a cross sign after "himself".
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to drop my metaphor, (for there is nothing more dishonest in an historian, than the use of one,)——in
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beg and beseech you, (in case you will do nothing better for us) that where-ever, in any part of your dominions it so falls out, that three several roads meet in one point, as they have done just here,—that at least you set up a guide-post,
Andrew
Is this a reference to the place where three roads meet where Oedipus killed Laius?
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others went through their classics at seven;—wrote
Andrew
My mother says I read The Odyssey aged 7!
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nor (according to Erasmus) 3 shall he speak to any one in making water,—nor shall he point to carrion or excrement.——Now
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when a soldier gets time to pray,—he prays as heartily as a parson,—though not with all his fuss and hypocrisy.——Thou shouldst not have said that, Trim, said my uncle Toby,—for God only knows who is a hypocrite, and who is not:——At
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my dear brother Shandy, who have sucked the same breasts with me,—and
Andrew
Closeness through having sucked on the same breasts. These are the breasts of Tristram's granny. Is this not a bit weird?
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’tis the fortune of war which has put the whip into our hands now——where it may be hereafter, heaven knows!——but be it where it will, the brave, Trim! will not use it unkindly.
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Plato and Tully name him as a judge of the dead.
Andrew
How long has it been since anybody called Cicero Tully?
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Locke had undercut Filmer’s interpretation of the fifth commandment as endorsing absolute patriarchal authority by reminding him that the commandment says ‘honour thy father and thy mother’.
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slut: In Sterne’s day, an affectionate word.
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wish it was the portion of splenetic philosophers, and Tartuffe’s of all denominations.’
Andrew
"Tatuffe's" is a clearer pluralisation than "Tartuffes".
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periclitating:
Andrew
Was clit an 18th century word?