Quotes from Laurence Sterne

A large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life, by him who interests his heart in everything.

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

For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.

Whatever stress some may lay upon it, a death-bed repentance is but a weak and slender plank to trust our all on.

Pain and pleasure, like light and darkness, succeed each other.

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.

There is no such thing as real happiness in life. The justest definition that was ever given of it was "a tranquil acquiescence under an agreeable delusion"--I forget where.

The more tickets you have in a lottery, the worse your chance. And it is the same of virtues, in the lottery of life.

Some people pass through life soberly and religiously enough, without knowing way, or reasoning about it, but, from force of habit merely, go to heaven like fools.

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

Digressions incontestably are the sunshine; they are the life, the soul of reading.

Men tire themselves in pursuit of rest.

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

The most accomplished way of using books is to serve them as some people do lords; learn their titles and then brag of their acquaintance.

Almost one half of our time is spent in telling and hearing evil of one another ... and every hour brings forth something strange and terrible to fill up our discourse and our astonishment.

A man cannot dress, but his ideas get cloath'd at the same time.

Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of Pensions and Grenadiers?

A good simile,--as concise as a king's declaration of love.

One may as well be asleep as to read for anything but to improve his mind and morals, and regulate his conduct.

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!

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

An English man does not travel to see English men.

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.

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