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Laurence Sterne Quotes


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

There are some tempers wrought up by habitual selfishness to an utter insensibility of what becomes of the fortunes of their fellow-creatures, as if they were not partakers of the same nature or had no lot or connection at all with the species.
[Selfishness]

There have been no sects in the Christian world, however absurd, which have not endeavoured to support their opinions by arguments drawn from Scripture.

There is no small degree of malicious craft in fixing upon a season to give a mark of enmity and ill-will; a word - a look, which at one time would make no impression, at another time wounds the heart, and, like a shaft flying with the wind, pierces deep, which, with its own natural force would scarce have reached the object aimed at.

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

time continues so throughout the whole delirium, though it should last for life. - Our passions and principles are steady in frenzy, but begin to shift and waver as we return to reason.

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

To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; and to have a deference for others governs our manners.

To judge rightly of our own worth we should retire from the world so as to see both its pleasures and pains in their proper light and dimensions - thus taking the heart from off this world and its allurements, which so dishonor the understanding as to turn the wisest of men into fools and children.
[Retirement]

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

We may imitate the Deity in all his moral attributes, but mercy is the only one in which we can pretend to equal him. - We cannot, indeed, give like God, but surely we may forgive like him.
[Mercy]

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!

What persons are by starts, they are by nature - you see them at such times off their guard. - Habit may restrain vice, and virtue may be obscured by passion, but intervals best discover man.

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

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.

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

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


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