Top 180 Laurence Sterne Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “Is it not an amazing thing, that men shall attempt to investigate the mystery of the redemption, when, at the same time that it is propounded to us as an article of faith solely, we are told that “the very angels have desired to pry into it in vain”?”

— Laurence Sterne

152. “Whatever stress some may lay upon it, a death-bed repentance is but a weak and slender plank to trust our all on.”

— Laurence Sterne

153. “Heaven be their resource who have no other but the charity of the world, the stock of which, I fear, is no way sufficient for the many great claims which are hourly made upon it.”

— Laurence Sterne

154. “A coward never forgives.”

— Laurence Sterne

155. “And what of this new book the whole world makes such a rout about? – Oh ! ’tis out of all plumb, my lord, – quite an irregular thing!”

— Laurence Sterne

156. “The happiness of life may be greatly increased by small courtesies in which there is no parade, whose voice is too still to tease, and which manifest themselves by tender and affectionate looks, and little kind acts of attention.”

— Laurence Sterne

157. “I have undertaken, you see, to write not only my life, but my opinions also; hoping and expecting that your knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the one, would give you a better relish for the other: As you proceed further with me, the slight acquaintance which is now beginning betwixt us, will grow into familiarity; and that, unless one of us is in fault, will terminate in friendship.”

— Laurence Sterne

158. “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;.”

— Laurence Sterne

159. “Honours, like impressions upon coin, may give an ideal and local value to a bit of base metal; but Gold and Silver will pass all the world over without any other recommendation than their own weight.”

— Laurence Sterne

160. “Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?”

— Laurence Sterne

161. “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

162. “Keep away from the fire!”

— Laurence Sterne

163. “Now don’t let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the oaths we make free with in this land of liberty of ours are our own; and because we have the spirit to swear them, – imagine that we have had the wit to invent them too.”

— Laurence Sterne

164. “Patience cannot remove, but it can always dignify and alleviate, misfortune.”

— Laurence Sterne

165. “There are few instances of the exercise of particular virtues which seem harder to attain to, or which appear more amiable and engaging in themselves, than those of moderation and the forgiveness of injuries.”

— Laurence Sterne

166. “How frequently is the honesty and integrity of a man disposed of by a smile or shrug! How many good and generous actions have been sunk into oblivion by a distrustful look, or stamped With the imputation of proceeding from bad motives, by a mysterious and seasonable whisper!”

— Laurence Sterne

167. “It is not in the power of every one to taste humor, however he may wish it; it is the gift of God! and a true feeler always brings half the entertainment along with him.”

— Laurence Sterne

168. “The improbability of a malicious story serves but to help forward the currency of it, because it increases the scandal. So that, in such instances, the world is like the pious St. Austin, who said he believed some things because they were absurd and impossible.”

— Laurence Sterne

169. “Precedents are the disgrace of legislation. They are not wanted to justify right measures, are absolutely insufficient to excuse wrong ones. They can only be useful to heralds, dancing masters, and gentlemen ushers.”

— Laurence Sterne

170. “Injuries come only from the heart.”

— Laurence Sterne

171. “What persons are by starts they are by nature.”

— Laurence Sterne

172. “The most accomplished way of using books is to serve them as some people do lords; learn their titles and then brag of their acquaintance.”

— Laurence Sterne

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

— Laurence Sterne

174. “The world is ashamed of being virtuous.”

— Laurence Sterne

175. “The great end of all religionis to purify our hearts – and conquer our passions – and in a word, to make us wiser and better men – better neighbours – better citizens – and better servants of GOD.”

— Laurence Sterne

176. “I like subordination, quoth my uncle Toby...”

— Laurence Sterne

177. “And in this, Sir, I am of so nice and singular a humour, that if I thought you was able to form the least judgment or probable conjecture to yourself, of what was to come in the next page, – I would tear it out of my book.”

— Laurence Sterne

178. “But desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it. The more my uncle Toby pored over his map, the more he took a liking to it! – by the same process and electrical assimilation, as I told you, through which I ween the souls of connoisseurs themselves, by long friction and incumbition, have the happiness, at length, to get all be-virtu’d – be-pictured, – be-butterflied, and be-fiddled.”

— Laurence Sterne

179. “I know there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people in it, who are no readers at all, – who find themselves ill at ease, unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of every thing which concerns you.”

— Laurence Sterne

180. “First, Whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better of his creed.”

— Laurence Sterne

181. “Let love therefore be what it will, my Uncle Toby fell into it – And possibly, gentle reader, with such a temptation so wouldst thou: For never did thy eyes behold, or thy concupiscence covet, anything in this world more concupiscible than widow Wadman.”

— Laurence Sterne

182. “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; had they duly consider’d how much depended upon what they were then doing;.”

— Laurence Sterne

183. “I have begun a new book, on purpose that I might have room enough to explain the nature of the perplexities in which my uncle Toby was involved, from the many discourses and interrogations about the siege of Namur, where he received his wound.”

— Laurence Sterne

184. “To such, however, as do not choose to go so far back into these things, I can give no better advice, than that they skip over the remaining parts of this chapter; for I declare before-hand, ’tis wrote only for the curious and inquisitive.”

— Laurence Sterne

185. “We lose the right of complaining sometimes by forbearing it.”

— Laurence Sterne

186. “The desire of life and health is implanted in man’s nature;- the love of liberty and enlargement is a sister-passion to it.”

— Laurence Sterne