Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sternewas an Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He wrote the novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, and also published many sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics. Sterne died in London after years of fighting consumption...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth24 November 1713
CountryIreland
truth hate men
So often has my judgment deceived me in my life, that I always suspect it, right or wrong,--at least I am seldom hot upon cold subjects. For all this, I reverence truth as much as any body; andif a man will but take me by the hand, and go quietly and search for itI'll go to the world's end with him:MBut I hate disputes.
knowledge loss dark
But mark, madam, we live amongst riddles and mysteries--the most obvious things, which come in our way, have dark sides, which thequickest sight cannot penetrate into; and even the clearest and most exalted understandings amongst us find ourselves puzzled and at a loss in almost every cranny of nature's works.
pain heart judging
When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the judgment a world of pains.
truth father mean
My father, whose way was to force every event in nature into an hypothesis, by which means never man crucified TRUTH at the rate he did.
strong fancy chapters
I have a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very nonsensically, and I will not balk my fancy.--Accordingly I set off thus:
kissing light hands
Time wastes too fast : every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen ; the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny! than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more -- every thing presses on -- whilst thou are twisting that lock, -- see! it grows grey ; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make!
reading sunshine soul
Digressions incontestably are the sunshine; they are the life, the soul of reading.
christian support literature
There have been no sects in the Christian world, however absurd, which have not endeavoured to support their opinions by arguments drawn from Scripture.
human-nature humans profession
Human nature is the same in all professions.
father people soul
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.
hypocrisy religion christianity
There is not a greater paradox in nature,--than that so good a religion [as Christianity] should be no better recommended by its professors.
passion literature return
Our passion and principals are constantly in a frenzy, but begin to shift and waver, as we return to reason.
marriage numbers vagueness
Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood.
doors mountain literature
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.