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Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?

Laurence Sterne

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Laurence Sterne
Age: 54 †
Born: 1713
Born: November 24
Died: 1768
Died: March 18
Autobiographer
Novelist
Religious
Writer
Book
Apothecary
Make
Mixtures
Pouring
Vessel
Shall
Books
Another
Ever

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Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery, said I, still thou art a bitter draught.
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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.
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Every thing in this world, said my father, is big with jest,--and has wit in it, and instruction too,--if we can but find it out.
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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.
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Tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes, thou hast got an hundred enemies and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so.
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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.
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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.
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Writings may be compared to wine. Sense is the strength, but wit the flavor.
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But mark, madam, we live amongst riddles and mysteries--the most obvious things, which come in our way, have dark sides, which thequickest sight cannot penetrate into and even the clearest and most exalted understandings amongst us find ourselves puzzled and at a loss in almost every cranny of nature's works.
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Precedents are the disgrace of legislation. They are not wanted to justify right measures, are absolutely insufficient to excuse wrong ones. They can only be useful to heralds, dancing masters, and gentlemen ushers.
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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.
Laurence Sterne
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Upon looking back from the end of the last chapter and surveying the texture of what has been wrote, it is necessary, that upon this page and the five following, a good quantity of heterogeneous matter be inserted, to keep up that just balance betwixt wisdom and folly, without which a book would not hold together a single year.
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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Vanity bids all her sons be brave, and all her daughters chaste and courteous.
Laurence Sterne
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Freethinkers are generally those who never think at all.
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A large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life, by him who interests his heart in everything.
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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.
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I am persuaded ... that both man and woman bear pain or sorrow, (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a horizontal position.
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There is one sweet lenitive at least for evils, which nature holds out so I took it kindly at her hands, and fell asleep.
Laurence Sterne
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Human nature is the same in all professions.
Laurence Sterne