LSLaurence Sterne

112 collected words

Laurence Sterne

Life dates: 1713 AD — 1768 AD

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

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Quotations and sayings

01c. 1740 AD

Go, poor devil, get thee gone! Why should I hurt thee? This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

Laurence Sterne / quote

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02c. 1740 AD

Great wits jump.

Laurence Sterne / quote

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03c. 1740 AD

"Our armies swore terribly in Flanders," cried my Uncle Toby, "but nothing to this."

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04c. 1740 AD

Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world, though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst, the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!

Laurence Sterne / quote

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05c. 1740 AD

The accusing spirit, which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the recording angel as he wrote it down dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever.

Laurence Sterne / quote

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06c. 1740 AD

I am sick as a horse.

Laurence Sterne / quote

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07c. 1740 AD

"They order," said I, "this matter better in France."

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08c. 1740 AD

I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, "'T is all barren!"

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09c. 1740 AD

God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.

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10c. 1740 AD

"Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery," said I, "still thou art a bitter draught."

Laurence Sterne / quote

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11c. 1740 AD

The sad vicissitude of things.

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12c. 1740 AD

Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.

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13c. 1740 AD

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

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14c. 1740 AD

The way to fame is like the way to heaven—through much tribulation.

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15c. 1740 AD

The brave only know how to forgive.

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16c. 1740 AD

I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, "It is all barren."

Laurence Sterne / quote

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17c. 1740 AD

O blessed Health! thou art above all gold and treasure; 'tis thou who enlargest the soul, and openest all its powers to receive instruction, and to relish virtue. He that has thee has little more to wish for, and he that is so wretched as to want thee, wants everything with thee.

Laurence Sterne / quote

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18c. 1740 AD

People who are always taking care of their health are like misers, who are hoarding up a treasure which they have never spirit enough to enjoy.

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19c. 1740 AD

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.

Laurence Sterne / quote

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20c. 1740 AD

If a man has a right to be proud of anything, it is of a good action done as it ought to be, without any base interest lurking at the bottom of it.

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21c. 1740 AD

Freethinkers are generally those who never think at all.

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22c. 1740 AD

There are many ways of inducing sleep,—the thinking of purling rills, or waving woods; reckoning of numbers; droppings from a wet sponge fixed over a brass pan, etc. But temperance and exercise answer much better than any of these succedaneums.

Laurence Sterne / quote

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23c. 1740 AD

An ounce of a man's own wit is worth a pound of other peoples'.

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24c. 1740 AD

Conversation is a traffic; and if you enter into it without some stock of knowledge to balance the account perpetually, the trade drops at once.

Laurence Sterne / quote

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