Quote

When, to gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon that an ignorant and helpless creature shall be sacrificed, it is an easy matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed, to make a fire to offer it up with.

Laurence Sterne

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Laurence Sterne
Age: 54 †
Born: 1713
Born: November 24
Died: 1768
Died: March 18
Autobiographer
Novelist
Religious
Writer
Upon
Ignorant
Sacrificed
Easy
Pick
Resolved
Matter
Picks
Helpless
Enough
Private
Appetite
Make
Offers
Creature
Thicket
Creatures
Spite
Thickets
Shall
Offer
Strayed
Fire
Sticks
Gratify

More quotes by Laurence Sterne

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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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Every thing in this world, said my father, is big with jest,--and has wit in it, and instruction too,--if we can but find it out.
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A coward never forgives.
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Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of Pensions and Grenadiers?
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I take a simple view of life. It is keep your eyes open and get on with it.
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Surely, 'tis one step towards acting well, to think worthily of our nature and as in common life, the way to make a man honest, is, to suppose him soso here, to set some value upon ourselves, enables us to support the characterof generosity and virtue.
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Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine, the life, the soul of reading! Take them out and one cold eternal winter would reign in every page. Restore them to the writer - he steps forth like a bridegroom, bids them all-hail, brings in variety and forbids the appetite to fail.
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Dear sensibility! Source inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! Eternal fountain of our feelings! 'tis here I trace thee and this is thy divinity which stirs within me...All comes from thee, great-great SENSORIUM of the world!
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It is not in the power of every one to taste humor, however he may wish it it is the gift of God! and a true feeler always brings half the entertainment along with him.
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Learning is the dictionary, but sense the grammar of science.
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When the affections so kindly break loose, Joy, is another name for Religion.
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Most of us are aware of and pretend to detest the barefaced instances of that hypocrisy by which men deceive others, but few of us are upon our guard or see that more fatal hypocrisy by which we deceive and over-reach our own hearts.
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Simplicity is the great friend to nature, and if I would be proud of anything in this silly world, it should be of this honest alliance.
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A man should know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad.
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Patience cannot remove, but it can always dignify and alleviate, misfortune.
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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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The world is ashamed of being virtuous.
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When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage - that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain.
Laurence Sterne
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For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.
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There is not a greater paradox in nature,--than that so good a religion [as Christianity] should be no better recommended by its professors.
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