Quotes from Laurence Sterne

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.

"Pray, my dear," quoth my mother, "have you not forgot to wind up the clock?"—"Good G—!" cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the same time—"Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question?"

Only the brave know how to forgive…. A coward never forgave; it is not in his nature.

I think there is a fatality in it—I seldom go to the place I set out for.

Hail, ye small, sweet courtesies of life! for smooth do ye make the road of it.

They order, said I, this matter better in France.

People who overly take care of their health are like misers. They hoard up a treasure which they never enjoy.

The Accusing Spirit, which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the Recording Angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever.

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me.

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

Men tire themselves in pursuit of rest.

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

The feather put into his cap of having been abroad.

Whistled up to London, upon a Tom Fool's errand.

One of the two horns of my dilemma.

So much of motion, is so much of life, and so much of joy, and to stand still, or get on but slowly, is death and the devil.

Good—bad—indifferent.

Ho! 'tis the time of salads.

Lessons of wisdom have the most power over us when they capture the heart through the groundwork of a story, which engages the passions.

"Our armies swore terribly in Flanders," cried my uncle Toby—"but nothing to this."

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

Most of us are aware of and pretend to detest the barefaced instances of that hypocrisy by which men deceive others, but few of us are upon our guard or see that more fatal hypocrisy by which we deceive and over-reach our own hearts.

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.

He was within a few hours of giving his enemies the slip forever.