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There are few instances of the exercise of particular virtues which seem harder to attain to, or which appear more amiable and engaging in themselves, than those of moderation and the forgiveness of injuries.

Laurence Sterne

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Laurence Sterne
Age: 54 †
Born: 1713
Born: November 24
Died: 1768
Died: March 18
Autobiographer
Novelist
Religious
Writer
Harder
Engaging
Exercise
Attain
Seem
Virtues
Particular
Injury
Virtue
Forgiveness
Amiable
Seems
Appear
Injuries
Instance
Instances
Goodness
Moderation

More quotes by Laurence Sterne

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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.
Laurence Sterne
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Ten cooks' shops! ...and all within three minutes' driving! one would think that all the cooks in the world ...had said - Come, let us all go live at Paris: the French love good eating - they are all gourmands - we shall rank high.
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What persons are by starts they are by nature.
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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
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Men tire themselves in the pursuit of sleep.
Laurence Sterne
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Philosophy has a fine saying for everything.-For Death it has an entire set.
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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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Writings may be compared to wine. Sense is the strength, but wit the flavor.
Laurence Sterne
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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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Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas.
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I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second.
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When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the judgment a world of pains.
Laurence Sterne
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Human nature is the same in all professions.
Laurence Sterne
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Freethinkers are generally those who never think at all.
Laurence Sterne
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Heaven be their resource who have no other but the charity of the world, the stock of which, I fear, is no way sufficient for the many great claims which are hourly made upon it.
Laurence Sterne
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How many thousands of [lives] are there every year that comes cast away, (in all civilized countries at least)--and consider'd asnothing but common air, in competition of an hypothesis.
Laurence Sterne
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In solitude the mind gains strength, and learns to lean upon herself in the world it seeks or accepts of a few treacherous supports--the feigned compassion of one, the flattery of a second, the civilities of a third, the friendship of a fourth--they all deceive, and bring the mind back to retirement, reflection, and books.
Laurence Sterne
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Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners.
Laurence Sterne
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Almost one half of our time is spent in telling and hearing evil of one another ... and every hour brings forth something strange and terrible to fill up our discourse and our astonishment.
Laurence Sterne
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The circumstances with which every thing in this world is begirt, give every thing in this world its size and shape--and by tightening it, or relaxing it, this way or that, make the thing to be, what it is--great--little--good--bad--indifferent or not indifferent, just as the case happens.
Laurence Sterne