Quote

First, whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better of his creed. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbors, and where they separate, depend upon it, 'Tis for no other cause but quietness sake.

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
Troublesome
Firsts
Cause
Passions
Disagreeable
First
Causes
Depend
Creed
Good
Passion
Separate
Neighbors
Always
Belief
Neighbor
Suspect
Men
Upon
Whenever
Creeds
Life
Religion
Sake
Quietness
Reason
Atheism
Talks
Loudly
Better
Depends
Suspects

More quotes by Laurence Sterne

Image
A coward never forgives.
Laurence Sterne
Image
Men tire themselves in the pursuit of sleep.
Laurence Sterne
Image
The way to fame, is like the way to heaven,--through much tribulation.
Laurence Sterne
Image
There are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman's pulse.
Laurence Sterne
Image
So long as a man rides his hobbyhorse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him - pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?
Laurence Sterne
Image
There is no small degree of malicious craft in fixing upon a season to give a mark of enmity and ill-will: a word--a look, which at one time would make no impression, at another time wounds the heart, and, like a shaft flying with the wind, pierces deep, which, with its own natural force, would scarce have reached the object aimed at.
Laurence Sterne
Image
There is nothing so awkward as courting a woman whilst she is making sausages.
Laurence Sterne
Image
Hail! the small courtesies of life, for smooth do ye make the road of it, like grace and beauty, which beget inclinations to love at first sight it is ye who open the door and let the stranger in.
Laurence Sterne
Image
So that the life of a writer, whatever he might fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of composition, as a state of warfare and his probation in it, precisely that of any other man militant upon earth,--both depending alike, not half so much upon the degrees of his WIT--as his RESISTANCE.
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
If time, like money, could be laid by while one was not using it, there might be some excuse for the idleness of half of the world, but yet not a full one. For even this would be such an economy as the living on a principal sum, without making it purchase interest.
Laurence Sterne
Image
An actor should be able to create the universe in the palm of his hand.
Laurence Sterne
Image
Freethinkers are generally those who never think at all.
Laurence Sterne
Image
When my way is too rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get off it to some smooth velvet path which fancy has scattered over with rosebuds of delights and, having taken a few turns in it, come back strengthened and refreshed.
Laurence Sterne
Image
I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second.
Laurence Sterne
Image
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
Image
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?
Laurence Sterne
Image
An English man does not travel to see English men.
Laurence Sterne
Image
If there is an evil in this world, it is sorrow and heaviness of heart. The loss of goods, of health, of coronets and mitres, is only evil as they occasion sorrow take that out, the rest is fancy, and dwelleth only in the head of man.
Laurence Sterne
Image
The most affluent may be stripped of all, and find his worldly comforts, like so many withered leaves, dropping from him.
Laurence Sterne