Laurence Sterne Quotes

A man cannot dress but his ideas get cloath'd at the same time, and if he dresses like a gentleman, every one of them stands presented to his imagination.

For I can truly say, that from the first hour I drew my breath in it, to this, that i can now scarce draw it at all, for an asthma I got in scating against the wind in Flanders; I have been the continual sport of what the world calls Fortune; and though i will not wrong her by saying, She has ever made me feel the weight of any great or signal evil; yet with all the good temper in the world, I affirm it of her, That in every stage of my life, and at every turn and corner where she could get fairly at me, the ungracious Duchess has pelted me with a set of as pitiful misadventures and cross accidents as ever small Hero sustained.

But desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it. The more my uncle Toby pored over his map, the more he took a liking to it! — by the same process and electrical assimilation, as I told you, through which I ween the souls of connoisseurs themselves, by long friction and incumbition, have the happiness, at length, to get all be-virtu’d — be-pictured, — be-butterflied, and be-fiddled.

"Babam bir hastalığın teşhisini her zaman tedavisiyle birlikte koyardı.
"Eğer ben mutlak hükümdar olsaydım... metropolümün her caddesine ortalıkta dolaşanlara oraya ne halt etmeye geldiklerini soracak bir yargıç tayin ederdim - ve eğer, adil ve birtaraf bir dava sonunda, evlerini bırakıp da çanta-çıkın, çoluk-çocuk, buralara gelmelerinin nedenini makul bir biçimde açıklayamıyorlarsa, kolculara teslim edip, tıpkı serseriler gibi, yasal yerleşim bölgelerine geri gönderirdim. Böylelikle de metropolün kendi ağırlığı altında ezilmesini önlemiş olurdum...

La seriedad es un continente misterioso del cuerpo que sirve para ocultar los defectos de la mente

— all I can say of the matter, is — That he has either a pumkin for his head — or a pippin for his heart, — and whenever he is dissected 'twill be found so.

Si un historiógrafo pudiera conducir su historia como un mulero conduce a su mula, — en línea recta y siempre hacia adelante: — por ejemplo, desde Roma hasta Loreto sin volver la cabeza ni una sola vez en todo el trayecto, ni a derecha ni a izquierda, — podría aventurarse a predecirles a ustedes, con un margen de error de una hora, cuándo iba a llegar al término de su viaje; — pero eso, moralmente hablando, es imposible. Porque si es un hombre con un mínimo de espíritu, se encontrará en la obligación, durante su marcha, de desviarse cincuenta veces de la línea recta para unirse a este o a aquel grupo, y de ninguna manera lo podrá evitar. Se le ofrecerán vistas y perspectivas que perpetuamente reclamarán su atención; y le será tan imposible no detenerse a mirarlas como volar; tendrá, además, diversos:
Relatos que compaginar:
Anécdotas que recopilar:
Inscripciones que descifrar:
Historias que trenzar:
Tradiciones que investigar:
Personajes que visitar.

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

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

— This is vile work. — For which reason, from the beginning of this, you see, I have constructed the main work and the adventitious parts of it with such intersections, and have so complicated and involved the digressive and progressive movements, one wheel within another, that the whole machine, in general, has been kept a-going; — and, what’s more, it shall be kept a-going these forty years, if it pleases the fountain of health to bless me so long with life and good spirits.

Ho! 'tis the time of salads.

Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine, the life, the soul of reading! Take them out and one cold eternal winter would reign in every page. Restore them to the writer - he steps forth like a bridegroom, bids them all-hail, brings in variety and forbids the appetite to fail.

I wish 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;

A man my good Sir, has seldom an offer of kindness to make to a woman, but she has a presentiment of it some moments before.

Every time a man smiles,—but much more so, when he laughs, that it adds something to this Fragment of life.