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The histories of the lives and fortunes of men are full of instances of this nature,--where favorable times and lucky accidents have done for them, what wisdom or skill could not.

Laurence Sterne

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Laurence Sterne
Age: 54 †
Born: 1713
Born: November 24
Died: 1768
Died: March 18
Autobiographer
Novelist
Religious
Writer
Men
Skills
Favorable
Lucky
Instances
Full
Fortunes
Wisdom
Skill
Times
Accidents
Lives
Instance
Nature
Luck
Done
Fortune
Histories

More quotes by 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?
Laurence Sterne
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Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas.
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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I had had an affair with the moon, in which there was neither sin nor shame.
Laurence Sterne
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When the affections so kindly break loose, Joy, is another name for Religion.
Laurence Sterne
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Positiveness is a most absurd foible. If you are in the right, it lessens your triumph if in the wrong, it adds shame to your defeat.
Laurence Sterne
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What persons are by starts they are by nature.
Laurence Sterne
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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.
Laurence Sterne
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That of all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing it is the bst-- I'm sure it is the most religious-- for I begin with writing the first sentence-- and trusting to Almighty God for the second.
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.
Laurence Sterne
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To write a book is for all the world like humming a song—be but in tune with yourself, madam, 'tis no matter how high or how low you take it.
Laurence Sterne
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I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second.
Laurence Sterne
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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.
Laurence Sterne
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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.
Laurence Sterne
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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.
Laurence Sterne
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There is no small degree of malicious craft in fixing upon a season to give a mark of enmity and ill-will: a word--a look, which at one time would make no impression, at another time wounds the heart, and, like a shaft flying with the wind, pierces deep, which, with its own natural force, would scarce have reached the object aimed at.
Laurence Sterne
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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.
Laurence Sterne
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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.
Laurence Sterne
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Writings may be compared to wine. Sense is the strength, but wit the flavor.
Laurence Sterne
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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