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It is a great pity but tis certain from every day's observation of man, that he may be set on fire like a candle, at either end provided there is a sufficient wick standing out.

Laurence Sterne

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Laurence Sterne
Age: 54 †
Born: 1713
Born: November 24
Died: 1768
Died: March 18
Autobiographer
Novelist
Religious
Writer
Certain
Observation
May
Sufficient
Great
Pity
Every
Standing
Men
Either
Like
Fire
Wick
Literature
Candle
Ends
Provided

More quotes by Laurence Sterne

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An actor should be able to create the universe in the palm of his hand.
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There are a thousand unnoticed openings, continued my father, which let penetrating eye at once into a man's soul and I maintain it, added he, that a man of sense does not lay down his hat in coming into a room, --or take it up in going out of it, but something escapes, which discovers him.
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Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.
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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.
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...beauty, like truth, never is so glorious as when it goes the plainest.
Laurence Sterne
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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?
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A man who values a good night's rest will not lie down with enmity in his heart, if he can help it.
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We are born to trouble and we may depend upon it, whilst we live in this world, we shall have it, though with intermissions.
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Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts can argue down or mask your passions--tell me, what trespass is it that man should have them?... If nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece--must the whole web be rent in drawing them out?
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The world is ashamed of being virtuous.
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Men tire themselves in the pursuit of sleep.
Laurence Sterne
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The most affluent may be stripped of all, and find his worldly comforts, like so many withered leaves, dropping from him.
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Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery, said I, still thou art a bitter draught.
Laurence Sterne
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For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.
Laurence Sterne
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If death, said my father, reasoning with himself, is nothing but the separation of the soul from the body--and if it is true that people can walk about and do their business without brains,--then certes the soul does not inhabit there.
Laurence Sterne
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The mind should be accustomed to make wise reflections, and draw curious conclusions as it goes along the habitude of which made Pliny the Younger affirm that he never read book so bad but he drew some profit from it.
Laurence Sterne
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There are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman's pulse.
Laurence Sterne
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Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine, the life, the soul of reading! Take them out and one cold eternal winter would reign in every page. Restore them to the writer - he steps forth like a bridegroom, bids them all-hail, brings in variety and forbids the appetite to fail.
Laurence Sterne
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Patience cannot remove, but it can always dignify and alleviate, misfortune.
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I had had an affair with the moon, in which there was neither sin nor shame.
Laurence Sterne