Quote

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
First
Door
Inclinations
Make
Sight
Hail
Love
Doors
Begets
Life
Grace
Courtesy
Like
Open
Inclination
Small
Smooth
Beauty
Stranger
Courtesies
Firsts
Road
Beget

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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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Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas.
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In all unmerciful actions, the worst of men pay this compliment at least to humanity, as to endeavour to wear as much of the appearance of it, as the case will well let them.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second.
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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?
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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.
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Writings may be compared to wine. Sense is the strength, but wit the flavor.
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Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance, in quest of melancholy adventures--but I know not how it is, but I am never so perfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within me, as when I am entangled in them.
Laurence Sterne
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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.
Laurence Sterne
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Freethinkers are generally those who never think at all.
Laurence Sterne
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A man who values a good night's rest will not lie down with enmity in his heart, if he can help it.
Laurence Sterne
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...beauty, like truth, never is so glorious as when it goes the plainest.
Laurence Sterne
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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
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A good simile,--as concise as a king's declaration of love.
Laurence Sterne
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Certainly it was ordained as a scourge upon the pride of human wisdom, that the wisest of us all, should thus outwit ourselves, and eternally forego our purposes in the intemperate act of pursuing them.
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Solitude is the best nurse of wisdom.
Laurence Sterne
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Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners.
Laurence Sterne