Laurence Sterne Quotes

I am this month one whole year older than I was this time twelve-month; and having got, as you perceive, almost into the middle of my fourth volume — and no farther than to my first day's life — 'tis demonstrative that I have three hundred and sixty-four days more life to write just now, than when I first set out; so that instead of advancing, as a common writer, in my work with what I have been doing at it — on the contrary, I am just thrown so many volumes back —

Tell me, ye learned, shall we for ever be adding so much to the bulk — so little to the stock?

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

Are we for ever to be twisting, and untwisting the same rope? for ever in the same track — for ever at the same pace?

Shall we be destined to the days of eternity, on holy-days, as well as working-days, to be shewing the relicks of learning, as monks do the relicks of their saints — without working one — one single miracle with them?

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....

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;

So that whether the pain of a wound in the groin (cæteris paribus) is greater than the pain of a wound in the knee — or
Whether the pain of a wound in the knee is not greater than the pain of a wound in the groin — are points which to this day remain unsettled.

— So much motion, continues he, (for he was very corpulent) — is so much unquietness; and so much of rest, by the same analogy, is so much of heaven.
Now, I (being very thin) think differently; and that so much of motion, is so much of life, and so much of joy — and that to stand still, or get on but slowly, is death and the devil —

Now don't let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the oaths we make free with in this land of liberty of ours are our own; and because we have the spirit to swear them, — imagine that we have had the wit to invent them too.

"There is not an oath, or at least a curse amongst them, which has not been copied over and over again out of Ernulphus a thousand times but, like all other copies, how infinitely short of the force and spirit of the original! It is thought to be no bad oath - and by itself passes very well - "God damn you" - Set it beside Ernulphus's - "God Almighty the Father damn you - God the Son damn you - God the Holy Ghost damn you" - you see 'tis nothing. - There is an orientality in his, we cannot rise up to."

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

Time wastes too fast… the days and hours of it… are flying over our heads like little clouds on a windy day, never to return more – everything presses on – whilst thou art twisting the 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!

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

Did not Dr. Kunastrokius, that great man, at his leisure hours, take the greatest delight imaginable in combing of asses tails, and plucking the dead hairs out with his teeth, though he had tweezers always in his pocket?

God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.

— for though he never after went to the house, yet he never met Bridget in the village, but he would either nod or wink, or smile, or look kindly at her, — or (as circumstances directed), he would shake her by the hand, — or ask her lovingly how she did, — or would give her a ribban, — and now and then, though never but when it could be done with decorum, would give Bridget a —

Now — Ten thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand (for matter and motion are infinite) are the ways by which a hat may be dropped upon the ground, without any effect. — Had he flung it, or thrown it, or cast it, or skimmed it, or squirted, or let it slip or fall in any possible direction under heaven, — or in the best direction that could be given to it, — had he dropped it like a goose — like a puppy — like an ass — or in doing it, or even after he had done, had he looked like a fool, — like a ninny — like a nicompoop — it had fail'd, and the effect upon the heart had been lost.