Laurence Sterne Quotes - Page 9

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• Solomon'sexcess became an insult upon the privileges of mankind; for by the same plan of luxury, which made it necessary to have forty thousand stalls of horses,--he had unfortunately miscalculated his other wants, and so had seven hundred wives....
  Wise--deluded man!

  Laurence Sterne

  Wise, Horse, Men

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• 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

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• Lessons of wisdom have the most power over us when they capture the heart through the groundwork of a story, which engages the passions.

  Laurence Sterne

  Wisdom, Passion, Heart

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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".

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• 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

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• 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

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• I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, 'Tis all barren--and so it is; and so is all the world to him who will not cultivate the fruits it offers.

  Laurence Sterne

  Travel, Men, World

  Laurence Sterne, Melvyn New, Geoffrey Day (2006). “A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy: And, Continuation of the Bramine's Journal : with Related Texts”, p.39, Hackett Publishing

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• The most accomplished way of using books is to serve them as some people do lords; learn their titles and then brag of their acquaintance.

  Laurence Sterne

  Book, People, Titles

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• Surely, 'tis one step towards acting well, to think worthily of our nature; and as in common life, the way to make a man honest, is, to suppose him soso here, to set some value upon ourselves, enables us to support the characterof generosity and virtue.

  Laurence Sterne

  Character, Men, Thinking

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• [I have] been in love with one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so, till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another.

  Laurence Sterne

  Motivation, Princess, Mean

  'A Sentimental Journey' (1768) 'Montriul'

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• Certainly it was ordained as a scourge upon the pride of human wisdom, that the wisest of us all, should thus outwit ourselves, and eternally forego our purposes in the intemperate act of pursuing them.

  Laurence Sterne

  Ambition, Pride, Excess

  Laurence Sterne, Thomas Stothard (1867). “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. And A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy ... With Life of the Author by Sir Walter Scott, Portrait, and Outline Wood Engravings After Thomas Stothard”, p.239

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• Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance, in quest of melancholy adventures--but I know not how it is, but I am never so perfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within me, as when I am entangled in them.

  Laurence Sterne

  Adventure, Knights, Soul

  Laurence Sterne, Melvyn New, Geoffrey Day (2006). “A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy: And, Continuation of the Bramine's Journal : with Related Texts”, p.156, Hackett Publishing

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• Upon looking back from the end of the last chapter and surveying the texture of what has been wrote, it is necessary, that upon this page and the five following, a good quantity of heterogeneous matter be inserted, to keep up that just balance betwixt wisdom and folly, without which a book would not hold together a single year.

  Laurence Sterne

  Funny, Book, Years

  Laurence Sterne (1834). “The Works of Laurence Sterne, in One Volume”, p.258

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