Quote

Positiveness is a most absurd foible. If you are in the right, it lessens your triumph if in the wrong, it adds shame to your defeat.

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
Defeat
Shame
Positiveness
Lessens
Wrong
Foibles
Happiness
Adds
Right
Triumph
Absurd
Add

More quotes by Laurence Sterne

Image
Most of us are aware of and pretend to detest the barefaced instances of that hypocrisy by which men deceive others, but few of us are upon our guard or see that more fatal hypocrisy by which we deceive and over-reach our own hearts.
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
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
Image
When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the judgment a world of pains.
Laurence Sterne
Image
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
Image
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.
Laurence Sterne
Image
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
Image
Only the brave know how to forgive it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at.
Laurence Sterne
Image
Patience cannot remove, but it can always dignify and alleviate, misfortune.
Laurence Sterne
Image
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
Image
Men tire themselves in pursuit of rest.
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
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
Image
It is not in the power of every one to taste humor, however he may wish it it is the gift of God! and a true feeler always brings half the entertainment along with him.
Laurence Sterne
Image
Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners.
Laurence Sterne
Image
What is the life of man! Is it not to shift from side to side? From sorrow to sorrow? To button up one cause of vexation! And unbutton another!
Laurence Sterne
Image
Titles of honour are like the impressions on coin — which add no value to gold and silver, but only render brass current.
Laurence Sterne
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?
Laurence Sterne