Laurence Sterne Quotes

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

The loneliness is the mother of wisdom.

I know there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people in it, who are no readers at all, — who find themselves ill at ease, unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of every thing which concerns you.

There are a thousand unnoticed openings, continued my father, which let a penetrating eye at once into a man's soul; and I maintain it, added he, that a man of sense does not lay down his hat in coming into a room, — or take it up in going out of it, but something escapes, which discovers him.

All womankind, from the highest to the lowest love jokes; the difficulty is to know how they choose to have them cut; and there is no knowing that, but by trying, as we do with our artillery in the field, by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the mark.

I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with a voice which I took to be of a child, which complained “it could not get out.” — I look’d up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, or child, I went out without further attention.
In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage. — “I can’t get out — I can’t get out,” said the starling.
I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approach’d it, with the same lamentation of its captivity. — “I can’t get out,” said the starling. — God help thee! said I, but I’ll let thee out, cost what it will; so I turn’d about the cage to get to the door; it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces. — I took both hands to it.
The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis, press’d his breast against it, as if impatient. — I fear, poor creature! said I, I cannot set thee at liberty. — “No,” said the starling — “I can’t get out — I can’t get out,” said the starling.

I define a nose, as follows, — intreating only beforehand, and beseeching my readers, both male and female, of what age, complexion, and condition soever, for the love of God and their own souls, to guard against the temptations and suggestions of the devil, and suffer him by no art or wile to put any other ideas into their minds, than what I put into my definition. — For by the word Nose, throughout all this long chapter of noses, and in every other part of my work, where the word Nose occurs, — I declare, by that word I mean a Nose, and nothing more, or less.

— My brother Toby, quoth she, is going to be married to Mrs. Wadman. — Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie diagonally in his bed again as long as he lives.

I could wish to spy the nakedness of their hearts, and through the different disguises of customs, climates, and religion, find out what is good in them, to fashion my own by. It is for this reason that I have not seen the Palais Royal - nor the facade of the Louvre - nor have attempted to swell the catalogues we have of pictures, statues, and churches - I conceive every fair being as a temple, and would rather enter in, and see the original drawings and loose sketches hung up in it, than the Transfiguration of Raphael itself.

Crack, crack — crack, crack — crack, crack — so this is Paris! quoth I (continuing in the same mood) — and this is Paris! — humph! — Paris! cried I, repeating the name the third time — The first, the finest, the most brilliant — — The streets however are nasty;
But it looks, I suppose, better than it smells — crack, crack — crack, crack —

Memiliki rasa hormat pada diri sendiri akan membimbing moral kita,
Memiliki rasa hormat terhadap orang lain akan menjaga sikap sopan santun kita.

— 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.

The pulsations of the arteries along my fingers pressing across hers, told her what was passing within me:
she look’d down — a silence of some moments followed.

" — I won't go about to argue the point with you, — 'tis so, — and I am persuaded of it, madam, as much as can be, "That both man and woman bear pain or sorrow, (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a horizontal position.

Cursed luck! — said he, biting his lip as he shut the door, — for man to be master of one of the finest chains of reasoning in nature, — and have a wife at the same time with such a head-piece, that he cannot hang up a single inference within side of it, to save his soul from destruction.