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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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Laurence Sterne
Age: 54 †
Born: 1713
Born: November 24
Died: 1768
Died: March 18
Autobiographer
Novelist
Religious
Writer
Life
Definitions
Illusion
Forget
Happiness
Acquiescence
Given
Agreeable
Ever
Tranquil
Real
Delusion
Thing
Definition
More quotes by Laurence Sterne
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
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
A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own size, take my word, is a dwarf in more articles than one.
Laurence Sterne
A man should know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad.
Laurence Sterne
A good simile,--as concise as a king's declaration of love.
Laurence Sterne
I know as well as any one, [the devil] is an adversary, whom if we resist, he will fly from us--but I seldom resist him at all from a terror, that though I may conquer, I may still get a hurt in the combat--soinstead of thinking to make him fly, I generally fly myself.
Laurence Sterne
When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the judgment a world of pains.
Laurence Sterne
A large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life, by him who interests his heart in everything.
Laurence Sterne
The director is responsible for interpreting the playwright's work through the cast with the help of the staff. It is the director's artistic concept of the play that the cast, staff, and crew work to obtain.
Laurence Sterne
Men tire themselves in the pursuit of sleep.
Laurence Sterne
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
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
The histories of the lives and fortunes of men are full of instances of this nature,--where favorable times and lucky accidents have done for them, what wisdom or skill could not.
Laurence Sterne
For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.
Laurence Sterne
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
Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts can argue down or mask your passions--tell me, what trespass is it that man should have them?... If nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece--must the whole web be rent in drawing them out?
Laurence Sterne
We lose the right of complaining sometimes, by denying something, but this often triples its force.
Laurence Sterne
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
That of all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing it is the bst-- I'm sure it is the most religious-- for I begin with writing the first sentence-- and trusting to Almighty God for the second.
Laurence Sterne
The brave only know how to forgive.
Laurence Sterne
