Quotes from Laurence Sterne

Titles of honour are like the impressions on coin; — which add no value to gold and silver, but only render brass current.

Chance is the providence of adventurers.

Our passion and principals are constantly in a frenzy, but begin to shift and waver, as we return to reason.

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.

Of all duties, prayer certainly is the sweetest and most easy.

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

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

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.

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

The loneliness is the mother of wisdom.

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.

My brother Toby , quoth she, is going to be married to Mrs. Wadman . —Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie diagonally in his bed again as long as he lives.

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.

Crack, crack—crack, crack—crack, crack—so this is Paris! quoth I (continuing in the same mood)—and this is Paris!—humph!—Paris! cried I, repeating the name the third time— The first, the finest, the most brilliant— —The streets however are nasty; But it looks, I suppose, better than it smells—crack, crack—crack, crack—

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.

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—

Cursed luck! —said he, biting his lip as he shut the door, —for man to be master of one of the finest chains of reasoning in nature, —and have a wife at the same time with such a head-piece, that he cannot hang up a single inference within side of it, to save his soul from destruction.

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

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....

Memiliki rasa hormat pada diri sendiri akan membimbing moral kita, Memiliki rasa hormat terhadap orang lain akan menjaga sikap sopan santun kita.

I won't go about to argue the point with you,—'tis so,—and I am persuaded of it, madam, as much as can be, That both man and woman bear pain or sorrow, (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a horizontal position.

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.

The chamber-maid had left no ******* *** under the bed:—Cannot you contrive, master, quoth Susannah , lifting up the sash with one hand, as she spoke, and helping me up into the window seat with the other,—cannot you manage, my dear, for a single time to **** *** ** *** ******?

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—