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Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of Pensions and Grenadiers?

Laurence Sterne

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Laurence Sterne
Age: 54 †
Born: 1713
Born: November 24
Died: 1768
Died: March 18
Autobiographer
Novelist
Religious
Writer
Father
Time
Pensions
Pension
Fit
Talk

More quotes by Laurence Sterne

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It appears an extraordinary thing to me, that since there is such a diabolical spirit in the depravity of human nature, as persecution for difference of opinion in religious tenets, there never happened to be any inquisition, any auto da fe, any crusade, among the Pagans.
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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An atheist is more reclaimable than a papist, as ignorance is sooner cured than superstition.
Laurence Sterne
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My father, whose way was to force every event in nature into an hypothesis, by which means never man crucified TRUTH at the rate he did.
Laurence Sterne
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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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Learning is the dictionary, but sense the grammar of science.
Laurence Sterne
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Shall we be destined to the days of eternity, on holy-days, as well as working-days, to be showing the relics of learning, as monks do the relics of their saints - without working one - one single miracle with them?
Laurence Sterne
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When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,--or, in other words, when his HOBBY-HORSE grows head- strong,--farewell cool reason and fair discretion.
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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Men tire themselves in the pursuit of sleep.
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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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
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The best hearts are ever the bravest.
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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The most accomplished way of using books is to serve them as some people do lords learn their titles and then brag of their acquaintance.
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
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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.
Laurence Sterne
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An English man does not travel to see English men.
Laurence Sterne
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Digressions incontestably are the sunshine they are the life, the soul of reading.
Laurence Sterne
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There is no such thing as real happiness in life. The justest definition that was ever given of it was a tranquil acquiescence under an agreeable delusion--I forget where.
Laurence Sterne