Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! said I,—still thou art a bitter draught! and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of t… - Laurence Sterne

Tis a long journey, Sir, replied the master of the inn — — unless a man has great business. — — Tut! tut! said the stranger, I have been at the promontory of Noses; and have got me one of the goodliest, thank Heaven, that ever fell to a single man’s lot.

Whilst the stranger was giving this odd account of himself, the master of the inn and his wife kept both their eyes fixed full upon the stranger’s nose — — By saint Radagunda, said the inn-keeper’s wife to herself, there is more of it than in any dozen of the largest noses put together in all Strasburg! is it not, said she, whispering her husband in his ear, is it not a noble nose?

’Tis an imposture, my dear,' said the master of the inn — — ’tis a false nose.'
’Tis a true nose,' said his wife.
’Tis made of fir-tree,' said he, I smell the turpentine. — —
'There’s a pimple on it,' said she.
’Tis a dead nose,' replied the inn-keeper.
’Tis a live nose, if I am alive myself,' said the inn-keeper’s wife.

The stranger had not got half a league on his way towards Frankfort before were just ringing to call the Strasburgers to their devotions, and shut up the duties of the day in prayer: — no soul in all Strasburg heard ’em — the city was like a swarm of bees — — men, women, and children, (the Compline bells tinkling all the time) flying here and there — in at one door, out at another — — this way and that way — long ways and cross ways — up one street, down another street — — in at this alley, out of that — — did you see it? did you see it? did you see it? O! did you see it? — — who saw it? who did see it? for mercy’s sake, who saw it?

Alack o’day! I was at vespers! — I was washing, I was starching, I was scouring, I was quilting — — God help me! I never saw it — — I never touch’d it! — — would I had been a centinel, a bandy-legg’d drummer, a trumpeter, a trumpeter’s wife, was the general cry and lamentation in every street and corner of Strasburg.

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.

A man cannot dress but his ideas get cloath'd at the same time, and if he dresses like a gentleman, every one of them stands presented to his imagination.