“—I won't go about to argue the point with you,—'tis so,—and I am persuaded 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.”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“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....”
Source: A Sentimental Journey
“We don't love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we have done them”
“Cursed luck! —said he, biting his lip as he shut the door, —for man to be master of one of the finest chains of reasoning in nature, —and have a wife at the same time with such a head-piece, that he cannot hang up a single inference within side of it, to save his soul from destruction.”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“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.”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“The desire of life and health is implanted in man's nature;- the love of liberty and enlargement is a sister-passion to it”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“I could wish to spy the nakedness of their hearts, and through the different disguises of customs, climates, and religion, find out what is good in them, to fashion my own by. It is for this reason that I have not seen the Palais Royal - nor the facade of the Louvre - nor have attempted to swell the catalogues we have of pictures, statues, and churches - I conceive every fair being as a temple, and would rather enter in, and see the original drawings and loose sketches hung up in it, than the Transfiguration of Raphael itself.”
Source: A Sentimental Journey
“I am this month one whole year older than I was this time twelve-month; and having got, as you perceive, almost into the middle of my fourth volume—and no farther than to my first day's life—'tis demonstrative that I have three hundred and sixty-four days more life to write just now, than when I first set out; so that instead of advancing, as a common writer, in my work with what I have been doing at it—on the contrary, I am just thrown so many volumes back—”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“My father, you must know, who was originally a Turkey merchant, but had left off business for some years, in order to retire to, and die upon, his paternal estate in the county of ——, was, I believe, one of the most regular men in every thing he did, whether 'twas matter of business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen of this extreme exactness of his, to which he was in truth a slave, he had made it a rule for many years of his life,—on the first Sunday-night of every month throughout the whole year,—as certain as ever the Sunday-night came,—to wind up a large house-clock, which we had standing on the back-stairs head, with his own hands:—And being somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age at the time I have been speaking of,—he had likewise gradually brought some other little family concernments to the same period, in order, as he would often say to my uncle Toby, to get them all out of the way at one time, and be no more plagued and pestered with them the rest of the month.
It was attended but with one misfortune, which, in a great measure, fell upon myself, and the effects of which I fear I shall carry with me to my grave; namely, that from an unhappy association of ideas, which have no connection in nature, it so fell out at length, that my poor mother could never hear the said clock wound up,—but the thoughts of some other things unavoidably popped into her head.”
“The chamber-maid had left no ******* *** under the bed:—Cannot you contrive, master, quoth Susannah, lifting up the sash with one hand, as she spoke, and helping me up into the window seat with the other,—cannot you manage, my dear, for a single time to **** *** ** *** ******?”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“To such, however, as do not choose to go so far back into these things, I can give no better advice, than that they skip over the remaining parts of this chapter; for I declare before-hand, 'tis wrote only for the curious and inquisitive.”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“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.”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“And what of this new book the whole world makes such a rout about?--Oh ! 'tis out of all plumb, my lord,--quite an irregular thing!”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“—So much motion, continues he, (for he was very corpulent)—is so much unquietness; and so much of rest, by the same analogy, is so much of heaven.
Now, I (being very thin) think differently; and that so much of motion, is so much of life, and so much of joy—and that to stand still, or get on but slowly, is death and the devil—”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“We lose the right of complaining sometimes by forbearing it”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“And in this, Sir, I am of so nice and singular a humour, that if I thought you was able to form the least judgment or probable conjecture to yourself, of what was to come in the next page, - I would tear it out of my book.”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“I have begun a new book, on purpose that I might have room enough to explain the nature of the perplexities in which my uncle Toby was involved, from the many discourses and interrogations about the siege of Namur, where he received his wound.”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“First, Whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better of his creed.”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“Read, read, read, read, my unlearned reader! read- or by the knowledge of the great saint Paraleipomenon- I tell you before-hand, you had better throw down the book at once; for without much reading, by which your reverence knows I mean much knowledge, you will no more be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motley emblem of my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to unravel the many opinions, transactions, and truths which still lie mystically hid under the dark veil of the black one.”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“De câte ori cineva vorbeşte cu tărie împotriva religiei poate fi suspectat că nu o face din raţiune, ci dintr-o pasiune din care şi-a făcut un crez.”
“Do you understand the theory of that affair? replied my father.
Not I, quoth my uncle.
—But you have some ideas, said my father, of what you talk about.—
No more than my horse, replied my uncle Toby.”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be interrupted in a story...”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“There is no such thing as real happiness in life. The justest definition that was ever given of it was "a tranquil acquiescence under an agreeable delusion"--I forget where.”
Source: The Works of Laurence Sterne: With a Life of the Author
“The improbability of a malicious story serves but to help forward the currency of it, because it increases the scandal. So that, in such instances, the world is like the pious St. Austin, who said he believed some things because they were absurd and impossible.”
Source: The works of Laurence Sterne, with a life of the author, written by himself
“"They order," said I, "this matter better in France."”
“The brave only know how to forgive.”
Source: The Works of Laurence Sterne ...: With a Life of the Author
“To saya man is fallen in love,or that he is deeply in love,or up to the ears in love,and sometimes even over head and ears in it,carries an idiomatical kind of implication, that love is a thing below a man:this is recurring again to Plato's opinion, which, with all his divinityship,I hold to be damnable and heretical:and so much for that. Let love therefore be what it will,my uncleToby fell into it.”
“A man should know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad.”
“We get forwards in the world not so much by doing services, as receiving them: you take a withering twig, and put it in the ground; and then you water it, because you have planted it.”
Source: A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy: And, Continuation of the Bramine's Journal : with Related Texts
“A man's body and his mind, with the utmost reverence to both I speak it, are exactly like a jerkin and a jerkin's lining; rumple the one, you rumple the other.”
Source: Works ...
“I never drink. I cannot do it, on equal terms with others. It costs them only one day; but me three, the first in sinning, the second in suffering, and the third in repenting.”
Source: The works of Laurence Sterne
“I had had an affair with the moon, in which there was neither sin nor shame.”
“If ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another.”
“I am sick as a horse.”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy. pt.6-9. A sentimental journey through France and Italy. pt.1-2
“Men tire themselves in the pursuit of sleep.”
“Now or never was the time.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Laurence Sterne (Illustrated)
“The most affluent may be stripped of all, and find his worldly comforts, like so many withered leaves, dropping from him.”
Source: The Works of Laurence Sterne, A. M.: The sermons of Mr. Yorick
“Vanity bids all her sons be brave, and all her daughters chaste and courteous.”
“I live in a constant endeavor to fence against the infirmities of ill health, and other evils of life, by mirth; being firmly persuaded that every time a man smiles, but much more when he laughs, it adds some thing to his fragment of life.”
“Great is the power of Eloquence; but never is it so great as when it pleads along with nature, and the culprit is a child strayed from his duty, and returned to it again with tears.”
Source: A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy: And, Continuation of the Bramine's Journal : with Related Texts
“When my way is too rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get off it to some smooth velvet path which fancy has scattered over with rosebuds of delights; and, having taken a few turns in it, come back strengthened and refreshed.”
Source: A sentimental journey through France and Italy: to which are added the letters to Eliza
“Any one may do a casual act of good-nature; but a continuation of them shows it a part of the temperament.”
Source: A Sentimental Journey
“The very essence of gravity was design, and, consequently, deceit; it was a taught trick to gain credit of the world for more sense end knowledge than a man was worth; and that with all its pretensions it was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined it--a mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind.”
Source: The Works of Laurence Sterne, in One Volume
“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.”
Source: The Works of Laurence Sterne, in One Volume
“What persons are by starts they are by nature.”
Source: The Works of Laurence Sterne: Complete in Eight Volumes
“It appears an extraordinary thing to me, that since there is such a diabolical spirit in the depravity of human nature, as persecution for difference of opinion in religious tenets, there never happened to be any inquisition, any auto da fe, any crusade, among the Pagans.”
Source: The Works of Laurence Sterne ...: With a Life of the Author, Written by Himself ...
“The happiness of life may be greatly increased by small courtesies in which there is no parade, whose voice is too still to tease, and which manifest themselves by tender and affectionate looks, and little kind acts of attention.”
“Madness is consistent; which is more than can be said for poor reason. Whatever may be the ruling passion at the time continues equally so throughout the whole delirium, though it should last for life. Madmen are always constant in love; which no man in his senses ever was. Our passions and principles are steady in frenzy; but begin to shift and waver, as we return to reason.”
Source: The Posthumous Works of Laurence Sterne: ...
“There is no small degree of malicious craft in fixing upon a season to give a mark of enmity and ill-will: a word--a look, which at one time would make no impression, at another time wounds the heart, and, like a shaft flying with the wind, pierces deep, which, with its own natural force, would scarce have reached the object aimed at.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Laurence Sterne (Illustrated)
“I have so great a contempt and detestation for meanness, that I could sooner make a friend of one who had committed murder, than of a person who could be capable, in any instance, of the former vice. Under meanness, I comprehend dishonesty; under dishonesty, ingratitude; under ingratitude, irreligion; and under this latter, every species of vice and immorality in human nature.”
Source: The Works of Laurence Sterne, A. M.: A sentimental journey through France and Italy. The Koran: or, The life, character and sentiments of Tria Juncta in Uno. A political romance
