I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pester’d the world ever convince me to the contrary. - Laurence Sterne

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.

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

No man cares to have his virtues the sport of contingencies—or one man may be generous, as another is puissant;—sed non quoad hanc—or be it as it may,—for there is no regular reasoning upon the ebbs and flows of our humours; they may depend upon the same causes, for aught I know, which influence the tides themselves: ’twould oft be no discredit to us, to suppose it was so: I’m sure at least for myself, that in many a case I should be more highly satisfied, to have it said by the world, “I had had an affair with the moon, in which there was neither sin nor shame,” than have it pass altogether as my own act and deed, wherein there was so much of both.