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The happiness of life may be greatly increased by small courtesies in which there is no parade, whose voice is too still to tease, and which manifest themselves by tender and affectionate looks, and little kind acts of attention.

Laurence Sterne

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Laurence Sterne
Age: 54 †
Born: 1713
Born: November 24
Died: 1768
Died: March 18
Autobiographer
Novelist
Religious
Writer
May
Whose
Tease
Little
Small
Courtesy
Looks
Attention
Greatly
Kind
Happiness
Tender
Life
Voice
Increased
Courtesies
Stills
Manifest
Parade
Still
Acts
Parades
Littles
Kindness
Affectionate

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O blessed Health! thou art above all gold and treasure 'tis thou who enlargest the soul, and openest all its powers to receive instruction, and to relish virtue. He that has thee has little more to wish for, and he that is so wretched as to want thee, wants everything with thee.
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Learning is the dictionary, but sense the grammar of science.
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Writings may be compared to wine. Sense is the strength, but wit the flavor.
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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?
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All womankind, from the highest to the lowest love jokes the difficulty is to know how they choose to have them cut and there is no knowing that, but by trying, as we do with our artillery in the field, by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the mark.
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Only the brave know how to forgive it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at.
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Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question?
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We are born to trouble and we may depend upon it, whilst we live in this world, we shall have it, though with intermissions.
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Always carry it in thy mind, and act upon it, as a sure maxim: That women are timid: And 'tis well they are--else there would beno dealing with them.
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A coward never forgives.
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So often has my judgment deceived me in my life, that I always suspect it, right or wrong,--at least I am seldom hot upon cold subjects. For all this, I reverence truth as much as any body andif a man will but take me by the hand, and go quietly and search for itI'll go to the world's end with him:MBut I hate disputes.
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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 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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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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Precedents are the disgrace of legislation. They are not wanted to justify right measures, are absolutely insufficient to excuse wrong ones. They can only be useful to heralds, dancing masters, and gentlemen ushers.
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First, whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better of his creed. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbors, and where they separate, depend upon it, 'Tis for no other cause but quietness sake.
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