Laurence Sterne quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Laurence Sterne on Wise Famous Quotes.

Keep away from the fire!

A coward never forgives.

I like subordination, quoth my uncle Toby...

The way to fame, is like the way to heaven,
through much tribulation.

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

I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pestered the world ever convince me to the contrary.

The loneliness is the mother of wisdom.

God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.

The best hearts are ever the bravest.

I have a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very nonsensically, and I will not balk my fancy.
Accordingly I set off thus:

Only the brave know how to forgive

An English man does not travel to see English men.

The chaste mind, like a polished plane, may admit foul thoughts, without receiving their tincture.

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

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

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.

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

What is the life of man! Is it not to shift from side to side? From sorrow to sorrow? To button up one cause of vexation! And unbutton another!

When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage - that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain.

Heat is in proportion to the want of true knowledge.

Endless is the search of truth.

And what of this new book the whole world makes such a rout about?
Oh ! 'tis out of all plumb, my lord,
quite an irregular thing!

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

The brave only know how to forgive.

When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the judgment a world of pains.

In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.

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

Positiveness is a most absurd foible. If you are in the right, it lessens your triumph; if in the wrong, it adds shame to your defeat.

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

Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?

When the precipitancy of a man's wishes hurries on his ideas ninety times faster than the vehicle he rides in
woe be to truth!

When the affections so kindly break loose, Joy, is another name for Religion.

There is one sweet lenitive at least for evils, which nature holds out; so I took it kindly at her hands, and fell asleep.

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

Patience cannot remove, but it can always dignify and alleviate, misfortune.

Sciences may be learned by rote, but wisdom not.

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

My father, whose way was to force every event in nature into an hypothesis, by which means never man crucified TRUTH at the rate he did.

Now or never was the time.

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

We don't love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we have done them

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

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

I begin with writing the first
sentence - and trusting to Almighty
God for the second.

Vanity bids all her sons be brave, and all her daughters chaste and courteous.

Men tire themselves in pursuit of rest.

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

There are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman's pulse.

Injuries come only from the heart.

Learning is the dictionary, but sense the grammar of science.

I had had an affair with the moon, in which there was neither sin nor shame.

I am sick as a horse.

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

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

Men tire themselves in the pursuit of sleep.

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

Freethinkers are generally those who never think at all.

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.

There is not a greater paradox in nature,
than that so good a religion [as Christianity] should be no better recommended by its professors.

The most affluent may be stripped of all, and find his worldly comforts, like so many withered leaves, dropping from him.

People who drink too much, health, and greedy. Hoard a treasure we do not like.

The best friends in the world may differ sometimes.

We lose the right of complaining sometimes, by denying something, but this often triples its force.

Philosophy has a fine saying for everything.-For Death it has an entire set.

Solitude is the best nurse of wisdom.

It is sweet to feel by what fine spun threads our affections are drawn together.

An atheist is more reclaimable than a papist, as ignorance is sooner cured than superstition.

What persons are by starts they are by nature.

The world is ashamed of being virtuous.

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

But this is neither here nor there why do I mention it? Ask my pen, it governs me, I govern not it.

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.

Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at.

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 ...

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

Respect for ourselves guides our morals; respect for others guides our manners

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

If a man has a right to be proud of anything, it is of a good action done as it ought to be, without any base interest lurking at the bottom of it.

A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own size, take my word, is a dwarf in more articles than one.

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

For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.

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

Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question?

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

The history of a soldier's wound beguiles the pain of it.

Any one may do a casual act of good-nature; but a continuation of them shows it a part of the temperament.

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

Alas, poor YORICK!

Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood.

We are born to trouble; and we may depend upon it, whilst we live in this world, we shall have it, though with intermissions.

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

Chance is the providence of adventurers.

The sad vicissitude of things.

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

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

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

ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question? Pray, what was your father saying? - Nothing.

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.

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

Writings may be compared to wine. Sense is the strength, but wit the flavor.