Laurence Sterne Literature Quotations

Keyholes are the occasions of more sin and wickedness, than all other holes in this world put together.

Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas.

So much of motion, is so much of life, and so much of joy, and to stand still, or get on but slowly, is death and the devil.

Our passion and principals are constantly in a frenzy, but begin to shift and waver, as we return to reason.

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.

When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage - that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain.

But this is neither here nor there why do I mention it? Ask my pen, it governs me, I govern not it.

There have been no sects in the Christian world, however absurd, which have not endeavoured to support their opinions by arguments drawn from Scripture.

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.

Men tire themselves in the pursuit of sleep.