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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

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Laurence Sterne
Age: 54 †
Born: 1713
Born: November 24
Died: 1768
Died: March 18
Autobiographer
Novelist
Religious
Writer
Firsts
Drink
Intemperance
First
Equal
Sinning
Never
Second
Repent
Term
Costs
Suffering
Third
Others
Thirds
Three
Terms
Cannot
Cost
Repenting

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When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the judgment a world of pains.
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Is it not an amazing thing, that men shall attempt to investigate the mystery of the redemption, when, at the same time that it is propounded to us as an article of faith solely, we are told that the very angels have desired to pry into it in vain?
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What persons are by starts they are by nature.
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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.
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Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?
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The best hearts are ever the bravest.
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Writings may be compared to wine. Sense is the strength, but wit the flavor.
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...beauty, like truth, never is so glorious as when it goes the plainest.
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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.
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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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Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.
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There is one sweet lenitive at least for evils, which nature holds out so I took it kindly at her hands, and fell asleep.
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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.
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Digressions incontestably are the sunshine they are the life, the soul of reading.
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Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery, said I, still thou art a bitter draught.
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I had had an affair with the moon, in which there was neither sin nor shame.
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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.
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If a man has a right to be proud of anything, it is of a good action done as it ought to be, without any base interest lurking at the bottom of it.
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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.
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Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of Pensions and Grenadiers?
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