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.... - Laurence Sterne

Persuasion hung upon his lips, and the elements of Logick and Rhetorick were so blended up in him, — and, withall, he had so shrewd guess at the weaknesses and passions of his respondent, — that NATURE might have stood up and said, — "This man is eloquent."

I am pursuaded of it, madam, as much as can be, That both man and woman bear pain or sorrow, (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a horizontal position.

"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."