Quotes from 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.

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.

For every ten jokes - thou hast got an hundred enemies...

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.

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

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!

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.

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

Alas, poor YORICK!

O]f all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing it is the best—I'm sure it is the most religious—for I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second.

An actor should be able to create the universe in the palm of his hand.

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

Titles of honor are like the impressions on coins, which add no value to gold or silver, but only render brass current.

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

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.

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?

The world is ashamed of being virtuous.

...beauty, like truth, never is so glorious as when it goes the plainest.

I take a simple view of life. It is keep your eyes open and get on with it.

Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners.

The best hearts are ever the bravest.

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

The brave only know how to forgive.

A coward never forgives.