Quote: We lose the right of complaining sometimes, by denying something, but this often triples its force. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: Positiveness is an absurd foible. If you are in the right, it lessens your triumph; if in the wrong, it adds shame to your defeat. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: People who overly take care of their health are like misers. They hoard up a treasure which they never enjoy. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: The desire of knowledge, like the thirst for riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: I am persuaded that every time a man smiles, but much more so when he laughs, it adds something to this fragment of life. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: All womankind, from the highest to the lowest love jokes; the difficulty is to know how they choose to have them cut; and there is no knowing that, but by trying, as we do with our artillery in the field, by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the mark. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: Pain and pleasure, like light and darkness, succeed each other. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: Our passion and principals are constantly in a frenzy, but begin to shift and waver, as we return to reason. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: Men tire themselves in pursuit of rest. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: 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]
Quote: Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine; they are the life, the soul of reading! Take them out of this book, for instance, --you might as well take the book along with them; --one cold external winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer; --he steps forth like a bridegroom, --bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: One may as well be asleep as to read for anything but to improve his mind and morals, and regulate his conduct. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: 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: A large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life, by him who interests his heart in everything. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: When ever a person talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not their reason, but their passions, which have got the better of their beliefs. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbors; and when they separate, depend on it that it is for the sake of peace and quiet. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: I once asked a hermit in Italy how he could venture to live alone, in a single cottage, on the top of a mountain, a mile from any habitation? He replied, that Providence was his next-door neighbor. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: 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. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: Alas! if the principles of contentment are not within us, the height of station and worldly grandeur will as soon add a cubit to a man's stature as to his happiness. [Laurence Sterne]
Quote: People who are always taking care of their health are like misers, who are hoarding a treasure which they have never spirit enough to enjoy. [Laurence Sterne]