Laurence Sterne Quotes - Page 2

Religion which lays so many restraints upon us, is a troublesome companion to those who will lay no restraints upon themselves.

The loneliness is the mother of wisdom.

An actor should be able to create the universe in the palm of his hand.

Almost one half of our time is spent in telling and hearing evil of one another ... and every hour brings forth something strange and terrible to fill up our discourse and our astonishment.

Sight is by much the noblest of the senses. We receive our notices from the other four, through the organs of sensation only. We hear, we feel, we smell, we taste, by touch. But sight rises infinitely higher. It is refined above matter, and equals the faculty of spirit.

For I begin with writing the first sentence, — and trusting to Almighty God for the second.

There are a thousand unnoticed openings, continued my father, which let penetrating eye at once into a man's soul; and I maintain it, added he, that a man of sense does not lay down his hat in coming into a room, --or take it up in going out of it, but something escapes, which discovers him.

Whatever stress some may lay upon it, a death-bed repentance is but a weak and slender plank to trust our all on.

The histories of the lives and fortunes of men are full of instances of this nature,--where favorable times and lucky accidents have done for them, what wisdom or skill could not.

Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas.

I had had an affair with the moon, in which there was neither sin nor shame.

Of all duties, prayer certainly is the sweetest and most easy.

An atheist is more reclaimable than a papist, as ignorance is sooner cured than superstition.

Freethinkers are generally those who never think at all.

Death opens the gate of fame, and shuts the gate of envy after it; it unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman's task into another man's hand.

I often derive a peculiar satisfaction in conversing with the ancient and modern dead, — who yet live and speak excellently in their works. My neighbors think me often alone, — and yet at such times I am in company with more than five hundred mutes — each of whom, at my pleasure, communicates his ideas to me by dumb signs — quite as intelligently as any person living can do by uttering of words.

It is not in the power of every one to taste humor, however he may wish it; it is the gift of God! and a true feeler always brings half the entertainment along with him.

So much of motion, is so much of life, and so much of joy, and to stand still, or get on but slowly, is death and the devil.

Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at.

If time, like money, could be laid by while one was not using it, there might be some excuse for the idleness of half of the world, but yet not a full one. For even this would be such an economy as the living on a principal sum, without making it purchase interest.

What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life by him who interests his heart in every thing, and who, having eyes to see, what time and chance are perpetually holding out to him as he journeyeth on his way, misses nothing he can fairly lay his hands on.

We all cry out that the world is corrupt,--and I fear too justly,--but we never reflect, what we have to thank for it, and that itis our open countenance of vice, which gives the lye to our private censures of it, which is its chief protection and encouragement.

Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood.

So long as a man rides his hobbyhorse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him - pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?

Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.