Laurence Sterne (1713–68) was an Irish-born British novelist and Anglican clergyman. Even though he produced only two works of fiction, he ranks as one of the foremost novelists of the 18th century on account of his experiments with the structure and organization of the novel.
Born in Clonmel in County Tipperary, Ireland, Sterne got educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he absorbed John Locke’s philosophy. Sterne subsequently worked as a clergyman in the north of England.
Sterne achieved instant notoriety and acclaim following the publication of the first two volumes of his nine-volume masterwork The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759–67.) Heralding the development of modernism, this novel radically challenged the conventions of the novel form and provoked much applause and abuse for its sentimentality and its salaciousness.
Tristram Shandy narrates the birth of its protagonist in volume four, near the novel’s midpoint. Sterne typifies that life is not necessarily best represented in a linear progression of dramatic incidents rounded off to a delightful moral analysis. Life is rather fragmentary and ever-changing and consists of a web of associations and influences drawing attention to the past and the future.
Sterne’s health-related sojourn in France provided material for his Sentimental Journey (1767,) which he completed before his death of tuberculosis. Sterne also wrote many sermons, memoirs, and was involved in local politics.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Laurence Sterne
Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Forgiveness
Rest unto our souls!—’tis all we want—the end of all our wishes and pur suits: we seek for it in titles, in riches and pleasures—climb up after it by am bition,—come down again and stoop for it by avarice,—try all extremes; nor is it till after many miserable experiments, that we are convinced, at last, we have been seeking everywhere for it but where there is a prospect of finding it; and that is, within ourselves, in a meek and lowly disposition of heart.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Rest
Madness is consistent, which is more than can be said of poor reason.—Whatever may be the ruling passion at the time continues so throughout the whole delirium, though it should last for life.—Our passions and principles are steady in frenzy, but begin to shift and waver as we return to reason.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Reason, Madness
Beauty hath so many charms one knows not how to speak against it; and when a graceful figure is the habitation of a virtuous soul—when the beauty of the face speaks out the modesty and humility of the mind, it raises our thoughts up to the great Creator; but after all, beauty, like truth, is never so glorious as when it goes the plainest.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Beauty
Algebra is the metaphysics of arithmetic.
—Laurence Sterne
Solitude is the best nurse of wisdom.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Solitude
Before an affliction is digested, consolation comes too soon; and after it is digested, it comes too late; but there is a mark between these two, as fine almost as a hair, for a comforter to take aim at.
—Laurence Sterne
Writing, when properly managed, is but a different name for conversation.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Writing
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
Topics: Certainty, Happiness
One may as well be asleep as to read for anything but to improve his mind and morals, and regulate his conduct.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Books, Reading
Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine; they are the life, the soul of reading! Take them out of this book, for instance,—you might as well take the book along with them;—one cold external winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer;—he steps forth like a bridegroom,—bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail.
—Laurence Sterne
Look into the world. How often do you behold a solid wretch, whose strait heart is open to man’s affliction, taking shelter behind and appearance of piety, and putting on the grab of religion, which none but the merciful and compassionate have a title to wear!
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Religion
I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, ’tis all barren—and so it is, and so is all the world to him who will not cultivate the fruits it offers.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Observation
Of all the cants in this canting world, deliver me from the cant of criticism.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Criticism
The desire of knowledge, like the thirst for riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Virtues, Knowledge
God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.
—Laurence Sterne
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
Topics: Jokes
‘Tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes, thou hast got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Humor, Jokes
The very essence of assumed gravity is design, and consequently deceit; a taught trick to gain credit with the world for more sense and knowledge than a man is worth.
—Laurence Sterne
Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world—though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst—the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Critics, Criticism, Hypocrisy, Art
It shocks me to think how much mischief almost every man may do, who will but resolve to do all he can.
—Laurence Sterne
How large a portion of chastity is sent out of the world by distant hints,—nodded away and cruelly winked into suspicion, by the envy of those who are past all temptation of it themselves. How often does the reputation of a helpless creature bleed by a report which the party propagating it beholds with pity, and is sorry for it, and hopes it may not be true, but in the meantime gives it her pass, that at least it may have fair play in the world,—to be be lieved or not, according to the charity of those into whose hands it shall happen to fall.
—Laurence Sterne
So long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse 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
Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, slavery, thou art a bitter draught.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Slavery
Hail! ye small sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do ye make the road of it, like grace and beauty which beget inclinations to love at first sight; ’tis ye who open the door and let the stranger in.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Manners, Courtesy
Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Conscience
The improbability of a malicious story serves to help forward the currency of it, because it increases the scandal. So that, in such instances, the world is like the one who said he believed some things because they were absurd and impossible.
—Laurence Sterne
To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; and to have a deference for others governs our manners.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Respectability, Self-respect, Respect, Manners, Morals
Fishwomen cry noble oysters. They certainly are full as noble as any family blazoned out in Collin’s peerage. If not of as ancient an house, of as old a bed at least. And to show their richness too, pearls and they are congenial.
—Laurence Sterne
Now or never was the time.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Secrets of Success, The Present
A great deal of virtue, at least the outward appearance of it, is not so much from any fixed principle, as the terror of what the world will say, and the liberty it will take upon the occasions we shall give.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Virtue
Most of us are aware of and pretend to detest the barefaced instances of that hypocrisy by which men deceive others, but few of us are upon our guard or see that more fatal hypocrisy by which we deceive and over-reach our own hearts.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Hypocrisy
I live in a constant endeavor to fence against the infirmities of ill-health, and other evils of life, by mirth. I am persuaded that every time a man smiles—but much more so when he laughs—it adds something to this fragment of life.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Laughter, Smile, Humor
The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Storytelling
Titles of honor are like the impressions on coin, which add no value to gold and silver, but only render brass current.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Honor, Titles
If a man has a right to be proud of anything, it is of a good action done as it ought to be, without any base interest lurking at the bottom of it.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Pride
This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: World
For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Humor
When ever a person talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not their reason, but their passions, which have got the better of their beliefs. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbors; and when they separate, depend on it that it is for the sake of peace and quiet.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Atheism
Nothing in this life, after health and virtue, is more estimable than knowledge,—nor is there anything so easily attained, or so cheaply purchased,—the labor, only sitting still, and the expense but time, which, if we do not spend, we cannot save.
—Laurence Sterne
Topics: Knowledge
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