Top 41 Quotes by Laurence Sterne

Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.

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.

Of all duties, prayer certainly is the sweetest and most easy.

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

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

The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it.

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.

An actor should be able to create the universe in the palm of his hand.

In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.

One may as well be asleep as to read for anything but to improve his mind and morals, and regulate his conduct.