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 … - Laurence Sterne

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

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

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....