Top 15 Laurence Sterne Quotes

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

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

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

Human nature is the same in all professions.

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

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

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

Time wastes too fast : every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen ; the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny! than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more — every thing presses on — whilst thou are twisting that lock, — see! it grows grey ; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make!

…so long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him, — pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?

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:

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 have undertaken, you see, to write not only my life, but my opinions also; hoping and expecting that your knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the one, would give you a better relish for the other: As you proceed further with me, the slight acquaintance which is now beginning betwixt us, will grow into familiarity; and that, unless one of us is in fault, will terminate in friendship.

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

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