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Laurence Sterne Quotes - Page 9

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When, to gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon that an ignorant and helpless creature shall be sacrificed, it is an easy matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed, to make a

When, to gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon that an ignorant and helpless creature shall be sacrificed, it is an easy matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed, to make a fire to offer it up with.

Laurence Sterne
Fire, Ignorant, Matter

Ten cooks' shops! ...and all within three minutes' driving! one would think that all the cooks in the world ...had said - Come, let us all go live at Paris: the French love good eating - they are all gourmands - we shall rank high.

Laurence Sterne
Food, Thinking, Paris
Laurence Sterne (1999). “Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.497, Modern Library

If there is an evil in this world, it is sorrow and heaviness of heart. The loss of goods, of health, of coronets and mitres, is only evil as they occasion sorrow; take that out, the rest is fancy, and dwelleth only in the head of man.

Laurence Sterne
Heart, Loss, Men
Laurence Sterne (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Laurence Sterne (Illustrated)”, p.405, Delphi Classics

What is the life of man! Is it not to shift from side to side? From sorrow to sorrow? To button up one cause of vexation! And unbutton another!

Laurence Sterne
Life, Men, Sorrow
Laurence Sterne (1817). “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman”, p.313

Shall we be destined to the days of eternity, on holy-days, as well as working-days, to be showing the relics of learning, as monks do the relics of their saints - without working one - one single miracle with them?

Laurence Sterne
Holy Days, Miracle, Saint
Laurence Sterne (1834). “The Works of Laurence Sterne, in One Volume”, p.144

There is not a greater paradox in nature,--than that so good a religion [as Christianity] should be no better recommended by its professors.

Laurence Sterne
Hypocrisy, Religion, Christianity

I know not whether the remark is to our honour or otherwise, that lessons of wisdom have never such power over us, as when they are wrought into the heart, through the ground-work of a story which engages the passions: Is it that we are like iron, and must first be heated before we can be wrought upon?

Laurence Sterne
Passion, Heart, Iron
Laurence Sterne, James P. Browne (1873). “The Works of Laurence Sterne ...: With a Life of the Author”, p.217, London : Bickers, H. Sotheran

Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question?

Laurence Sterne
Silly, Men, World
Tristram Shandy bk. 1, ch. 1 (1759 - 1767)

If ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another.

Laurence Sterne
Passion, Mean, Action
'A Sentimental Journey' (1768) 'Montriul'

So that the life of a writer, whatever he might fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of composition, as a state of warfare; and his probation in it, precisely that of any other man militant upon earth,--both depending alike, not half so much upon the degrees of his WIT--as his RESISTANCE.

Laurence Sterne
Men, Half, Earth
Laurence Sterne (1849). “The Works of Laurence Sterne: Containing the Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent., Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, Sermons, Letters, &c. With a Life of the Author Written by Himself”, p.228

Titles of honour are like the impressions on coin; — which add no value to gold and silver, but only render brass current.

Laurence Sterne
Honor, Gold, Titles
"The Works of Laurence Sterne".

But mark, madam, we live amongst riddles and mysteries--the most obvious things, which come in our way, have dark sides, which thequickest sight cannot penetrate into; and even the clearest and most exalted understandings amongst us find ourselves puzzled and at a loss in almost every cranny of nature's works.

Laurence Sterne
Knowledge, Loss, Dark
Laurence Sterne (1847). “Works, Containing the Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent: A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, Sermons, Letters and C”, p.185

I am sick as a horse.

Laurence Sterne
Horse, Sick
Laurence Sterne (1819). “The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy. pt.6-9. A sentimental journey through France and Italy. pt.1-2”, p.84

There are few instances of the exercise of particular virtues which seem harder to attain to, or which appear more amiable and engaging in themselves, than those of moderation and the forgiveness of injuries.

Laurence Sterne
Forgiveness, Exercise, Virtue
Laurence Sterne (1849). “The Works of Laurence Sterne: Containing The Life and Opinions of Tristan Shandy ... [etc.] ; with a Life of the Author Written by Himself”, p.409

There is a plain distinction to be made betwixt pleasure and happiness. For tho' there can be no happiness without pleasure--yet the converse of the proposition will not hold true.--We are so made, that from the common gratifications of our appetites, and the impressions of a thousand objects, we snatch the one, like a transient gleam, without being suffered to taste the other.

Laurence Sterne
Happiness, Gleam, Taste
Laurence Sterne (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Laurence Sterne (Illustrated)”, Delphi Classics

To have the fear of God before our eyes, and, in our mutual dealings with each other, to govern our actions by the eternal measures of right and wrong:MThe first of these will comprehend the duties of religion;Mthe second, those of morality, which are so inseparably connected together, that you cannot divide these two tableswithout breaking and mutually destroying them both.

Laurence Sterne
Bible, Eye, Two

In solitude the mind gains strength, and learns to lean upon herself; in the world it seeks or accepts of a few treacherous supports--the feigned compassion of one, the flattery of a second, the civilities of a third, the friendship of a fourth--they all deceive, and bring the mind back to retirement, reflection, and books.

Laurence Sterne
Retirement, Book, Reflection
Laurence Sterne (1811). “The Beauties of Sterne: With Some Account of His Life”, p.139

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