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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

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Laurence Sterne
Age: 54 †
Born: 1713
Born: November 24
Died: 1768
Died: March 18
Autobiographer
Novelist
Religious
Writer
Firsts
Road
Beget
First
Door
Inclinations
Make
Sight
Hail
Love
Doors
Begets
Life
Grace
Courtesy
Like
Open
Inclination
Small
Smooth
Beauty
Stranger
Courtesies

More quotes by Laurence Sterne

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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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Any one may do a casual act of good-nature but a continuation of them shows it a part of the temperament.
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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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I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second.
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Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine, the life, the soul of reading! Take them out and one cold eternal winter would reign in every page. Restore them to the writer - he steps forth like a bridegroom, bids them all-hail, brings in variety and forbids the appetite to fail.
Laurence Sterne
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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.
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Lessons of wisdom have the most power over us when they capture the heart through the groundwork of a story, which engages the passions.
Laurence Sterne
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An actor should be able to create the universe in the palm of his hand.
Laurence Sterne
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Look into the world--how often do you behold a sordid wretch, whose straight heart is open to no man's affliction, taking shelterbehind an appearance of piety, and putting on the garb of religion, which none but the merciful and compassionate have a title to wear.
Laurence Sterne
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The history of a soldier's wound beguiles the pain of it.
Laurence Sterne
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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.
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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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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What persons are by starts they are by nature.
Laurence Sterne
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Human nature is the same in all professions.
Laurence Sterne
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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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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
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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
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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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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