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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.

Laurence Sterne

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Laurence Sterne
Age: 54 †
Born: 1713
Born: November 24
Died: 1768
Died: March 18
Autobiographer
Novelist
Religious
Writer
Conscious
Adventures
Existence
Knights
Within
Quests
Soul
Quest
Woeful
Going
Melancholy
Entangled
Never
Perfectly
Knight
Like
Adventure
Sentimentality
Sorrow
Countenance

More quotes by Laurence Sterne

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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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A coward never forgives.
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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.
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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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The most affluent may be stripped of all, and find his worldly comforts, like so many withered leaves, dropping from him.
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Solitude is the best nurse of wisdom.
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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.
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A man should know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad.
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Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk of Pensions and Grenadiers?
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We often think ourselves inconsistent creatures, when we are the furthest from it, and all the variety of shapes and contradictory appearances we put on, are in truth but so many different attempts to gratify the same governing appetite.
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The world is ashamed of being virtuous.
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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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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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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.
Laurence Sterne
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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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An actor should be able to create the universe in the palm of his hand.
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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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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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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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.
Laurence Sterne