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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.

Laurence Sterne

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Laurence Sterne
Age: 54 †
Born: 1713
Born: November 24
Died: 1768
Died: March 18
Autobiographer
Novelist
Religious
Writer
Different
Appetite
Think
Variety
Furthest
Thinking
Appearance
Gratify
Shapes
Appearances
Creatures
Inconsistent
Often
Contradictory
Truth
Governing
Many
Attempts

More quotes by Laurence Sterne

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It appears an extraordinary thing to me, that since there is such a diabolical spirit in the depravity of human nature, as persecution for difference of opinion in religious tenets, there never happened to be any inquisition, any auto da fe, any crusade, among the Pagans.
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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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I had had an affair with the moon, in which there was neither sin nor shame.
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A coward never forgives.
Laurence Sterne
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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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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.
Laurence Sterne
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Titles of honour are like the impressions on coin — which add no value to gold and silver, but only render brass current.
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For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.
Laurence Sterne
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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!
Laurence Sterne
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If death, said my father, reasoning with himself, is nothing but the separation of the soul from the body--and if it is true that people can walk about and do their business without brains,--then certes the soul does not inhabit there.
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Men tire themselves in the pursuit of sleep.
Laurence Sterne
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'Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause,-and of obstinacy in a bad one.
Laurence Sterne
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An atheist is more reclaimable than a papist, as ignorance is sooner cured than superstition.
Laurence Sterne
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The brave only know how to forgive.
Laurence Sterne
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Digressions incontestably are the sunshine they are the life, the soul of reading.
Laurence Sterne
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I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me.
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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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?
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.
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There is nothing so awkward as courting a woman whilst she is making sausages.
Laurence Sterne