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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Laurence Sterne
Age: 54 †
Born: 1713
Born: November 24
Died: 1768
Died: March 18
Autobiographer
Novelist
Religious
Writer
Single
Venture
Habitation
Alone
Providence
Hermit
Literature
Neighbor
Hermits
Next
Miles
Cottage
Live
Door
Cottages
Mountain
Mile
Asked
Italy
Doors
Replied

More quotes by Laurence Sterne

Image
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
Image
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
Image
Is it not an amazing thing, that men shall attempt to investigate the mystery of the redemption, when, at the same time that it is propounded to us as an article of faith solely, we are told that the very angels have desired to pry into it in vain?
Laurence Sterne
Image
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
Image
Death opens the gate of fame, and shuts the gate of envy after it it unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman's task into another man's hand.
Laurence Sterne
Image
Digressions incontestably are the sunshine they are the life, the soul of reading.
Laurence Sterne
Image
Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?
Laurence Sterne
Image
For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.
Laurence Sterne
Image
An atheist is more reclaimable than a papist, as ignorance is sooner cured than superstition.
Laurence Sterne
Image
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
Image
People who drink too much, health, and greedy. Hoard a treasure we do not like.
Laurence Sterne
Image
If time, like money, could be laid by while one was not using it, there might be some excuse for the idleness of half of the world, but yet not a full one. For even this would be such an economy as the living on a principal sum, without making it purchase interest.
Laurence Sterne
Image
It is sweet to feel by what fine spun threads our affections are drawn together.
Laurence Sterne
Image
I hate set dissertations,--and above all things in the world, 'tis one of the silliest things in one of them, to darken your hypothesis by placing a number of tall, opake words, one before another, in a right line, betwixt your own and your readers conception.
Laurence Sterne
Image
Almost one half of our time is spent in telling and hearing evil of one another ... and every hour brings forth something strange and terrible to fill up our discourse and our astonishment.
Laurence Sterne
Image
Our passion and principals are constantly in a frenzy, but begin to shift and waver, as we return to reason.
Laurence Sterne
Image
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
Image
Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of Pensions and Grenadiers?
Laurence Sterne
Image
'Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause,-and of obstinacy in a bad one.
Laurence Sterne
Image
When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage - that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain.
Laurence Sterne