Quote

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
Term
Costs
Suffering
Third
Others
Thirds
Three
Terms
Cannot
Cost
Repenting
Firsts
Drink
Intemperance
First
Equal
Sinning
Never
Second
Repent

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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.
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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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Men tire themselves in the pursuit of sleep.
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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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When the affections so kindly break loose, Joy, is another name for Religion.
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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.
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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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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.
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An actor should be able to create the universe in the palm of his hand.
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Human nature is the same in all professions.
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A man should know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad.
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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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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.
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Of all duties, prayer certainly is the sweetest and most easy.
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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.
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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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The mind should be accustomed to make wise reflections, and draw curious conclusions as it goes along the habitude of which made Pliny the Younger affirm that he never read book so bad but he drew some profit from it.
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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.
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It is a great pity but tis certain from every day's observation of man, that he may be set on fire like a candle, at either end provided there is a sufficient wick standing out.
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Death opens the gate of fame, and shuts the gate of envy after it it unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman's task into another man's hand.
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