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I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second.

Laurence Sterne

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Laurence Sterne
Age: 54 †
Born: 1713
Born: November 24
Died: 1768
Died: March 18
Autobiographer
Novelist
Religious
Writer
First
Writing
Trusting
Almighty
Sentence
Sentences
Begin
Second
Firsts

More quotes by Laurence Sterne

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A man should know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad.
Laurence Sterne
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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
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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
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Vanity bids all her sons be brave, and all her daughters chaste and courteous.
Laurence Sterne
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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
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The best friends in the world may differ sometimes.
Laurence Sterne
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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
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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.
Laurence Sterne
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How many thousands of [lives] are there every year that comes cast away, (in all civilized countries at least)--and consider'd asnothing but common air, in competition of an hypothesis.
Laurence Sterne
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It is sweet to feel by what fine spun threads our affections are drawn together.
Laurence Sterne
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Only the brave know how to forgive it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at.
Laurence Sterne
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Any one may do a casual act of good-nature but a continuation of them shows it a part of the temperament.
Laurence Sterne
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The circumstances with which every thing in this world is begirt, give every thing in this world its size and shape--and by tightening it, or relaxing it, this way or that, make the thing to be, what it is--great--little--good--bad--indifferent or not indifferent, just as the case happens.
Laurence Sterne
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The soul and body are joint-sharers in every thing they get: A man cannot dress, but his ideas get cloath'd at the same time andif he dresses like a gentleman, every one of them stands presented to his imagination, genteelized along with him.
Laurence Sterne
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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
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The history of a soldier's wound beguiles the pain of it.
Laurence Sterne
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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
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People who drink too much, health, and greedy. Hoard a treasure we do not like.
Laurence Sterne
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When the affections so kindly break loose, Joy, is another name for Religion.
Laurence Sterne
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To write a book is for all the world like humming a song—be but in tune with yourself, madam, 'tis no matter how high or how low you take it.
Laurence Sterne