Laurence Sterne Quotes

Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation. As no one, who knows what he is about in good company, would venture to talk all, so no author, who understands the just boundaries of decorum and good breeding, would presume to think all. The truest respect which you can pay to the reader's understanding, is to halve this matter amicably, and leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself.

... yanlış yanlıştır, nerede olursa olsun, nereye düşerse düşsün, ister bir ondalık, ister bir libre ağırlığında olsun, doğruya ölümcül bir darbe vurur ve onu karanlık kuyusunun dibine mahkûm eder - ister kelebeğin kanadındaki toz zerreciği kadar, ister güneşin, ayın ve bütün yıldızların ekseni büyüklüğünde olsun, yanlış yanlıştır. Bu yeterince önemsenmediği ve gerek kamusal, gerekse düşünsel sorunlarda gereğince uygulanmadığı için, dünyadaki pek çok şey şirazesinden çıkmıştır.

Button-holes! there is something lively in the very idea of 'em - and trust me, when I get amongst 'em - you gentry with great beards - look as grave as you will - I'll make merry work with my button-holes - I shall have 'em all to myself - 'tis a maiden subject - I shall run foul of no man's wisdom or fine sayings in it.

My father, you must know, who was originally a Turkey merchant, but had left off business for some years, in order to retire to, and die upon, his paternal estate in the county of — — , was, I believe, one of the most regular men in every thing he did, whether 'twas matter of business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen of this extreme exactness of his, to which he was in truth a slave, he had made it a rule for many years of his life, — on the first Sunday-night of every month throughout the whole year, — as certain as ever the Sunday-night came, — to wind up a large house-clock, which we had standing on the back-stairs head, with his own hands: — And being somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age at the time I have been speaking of, — he had likewise gradually brought some other little family concernments to the same period, in order, as he would often say to my uncle Toby, to get them all out of the way at one time, and be no more plagued and pestered with them the rest of the month.

It was attended but with one misfortune, which, in a great measure, fell upon myself, and the effects of which I fear I shall carry with me to my grave; namely, that from an unhappy association of ideas, which have no connection in nature, it so fell out at length, that my poor mother could never hear the said clock wound up, — but the thoughts of some other things unavoidably popped into her head.

A true feeler always brings half the entertainment along with him. His own ideas are only call'd forth by what he reads, and the vibrations within, so entirely correspond with those excited, 'tis like reading himself and not the book.

Mi padre comenzaba apoyándose en la fuerza de los dos axiomas siguientes: Primero: que, para un hombre, una onza de su propia inteligencia valía por una tonelada de la de cualquier otra persona; y Segundo (el cual, por cierto, era el fundamento del primer axioma — aunque viniera después): que la inteligencia de todo hombre debía necesariamente provenir de su propia alma — y jamás de la de ninguna otra persona.

our knowledge physical, metaphysical, physiological, polemical, nautical, mathematical, ænigmatical, technical, biographical, romantical, chemical, and obstetrical, with fifty other branches of it, (most of ’em ending, as these do, in ical) have, for these two last centuries and more, gradually been creeping upwards towards that Aκμ4 of their perfections, from which, if we may form a conjecture from the advances of these last seven years, we cannot possibly be far off. When that happens, it is to be hoped, it will put an end to all kind of writings whatsoever; — the want of all kind of writing will put an end to all kind of reading; — and that in time, As war begets poverty, poverty peace,5 — — must, in course, put an end to all kind of knowledge, — and then — — we shall have all to begin over again; or, in other words, be exactly where we started. — — — Happy! thrice

In a word, my work is digressive, and it is progressive too, — and at the same time.

Pray my Dear, quoth my mother, have you not forgot to wind up the clock? — Good G — ! cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the same time, — — Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question? Pray, what was your father saying? — — — — Nothing.

A white bear! Very well. Have I ever seen one? Might I ever have seen one? Am I ever to have seen one?
Ought I ever to have seen one? Or can I ever see one?

Would I have seen a white bear! (for how can I imagine it?)

If I should see a white bear, what should I say?
If I should never see a white bear, what then?

If I never have, can, must, or shall see a white bear alive; have I ever seen the skin of one?
Did I ever see one painted? -Described?

Have I never dreamed of one?

Did my father, mother, uncle, aunt, brothers or sisters, ever see a white bear?
What would they give?
How would they behave?
How would the white bear have behaved?

Is he wild? Tame? Terrible? Rough? Smooth?

- Is the white bear worth seeing? -

- Is there no sin in it? -

Is it better than a Black One?

We lose the right of complaining sometimes by forbearing it

— Now my father had a way, a little like that of Job's (in case there ever was such a man — if not, there's an end of the matter. — Though, by the bye, because your learned men find some difficulty in fixing the precise æra in which so great a man lived; — whether, for instance, before or after the patriarchs, &c. — to vote, therefore, that he never lived at all, is a little cruel, — 'tis not doing as they would be done by — happen that as it — My father, I say, had a way, when things went extremely wrong with him, especially upon the first sally of his impatience — of wondering why he was begot, — wishing himself dead; — sometimes worse: —

Go poor Devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee? — This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

Do you understand the theory of that affair? replied my father.
Not I, quoth my uncle. — But you have some ideas, said my father, of what you talk about. — No more than my horse, replied my uncle Toby.

was all uniformity; — he was systematical, and, like all systematic reasoners, he would move both heaven and earth, and twist and torture every thing in nature to support his hypothesis.