Quotes from Laurence Sterne

It is a great pity but tis certain from every day's observation of man, that he may be set on fire like a candle, at either end provided there is a sufficient wick standing out.

In all unmerciful actions, the worst of men pay this compliment at least to humanity, as to endeavour to wear as much of the appearance of it, as the case will well let them.

Alas! if the principles of contentment are not within us, the height of station and worldly grandeur will as soon add a cubit to a man's stature as to his happiness.

Solitude is the best nurse of wisdom.

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

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!

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.

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

This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

I am persuaded that every time a man smiles - but much more so when he laughs - it adds something to this fragment of life

There was a strange kind of magick bias, which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly impressed upon our characters and conduct…. How many Caesars and Pompeys, he would say, by mere inspiration of the names, have been rendered worthy of them?

A man should know something of his own country, too, before he goes abroad.

Go, poor devil, get thee gone! Why should I hurt thee? This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

There is a Northwest Passage to the intellectual world.

The very essence of gravity was design, and consequently deceit… it was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined it,—viz., A mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind.

It is in the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, that it assimilates 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.

This sad vicissitude of things.

Persuasion hung upon his lips.

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

Sciences may be learned by rote, but wisdom not.

An English man does not travel to see English men.

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

God tempers the wind, said Maria, to the shorn lamb.

I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, 'Tis all barren!