Date: 1768

"I vow, I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; or do I remember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly call'd home."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferr'd."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"I could not help looking for some time at him as I sat in the remise--the more I look'd at him, his croix, and his basket, the stronger they wove themselves into my brain."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"But I could wish, continued I, to spy the nakedness of their hearts, and through the different disguises of customs, climates, and religion, find out what is good in them to fashion my own by--and therefore am I come."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"I conceive every fair being as a temple, and would rather enter in, and see the original drawings and loose sketches hung up in it, than the transfiguration of Raphael itself."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"When my way is too rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get off it, to some smooth velvet path which fancy has scattered over with rose-buds of delights; and having taken a few turns in it, come back strengthen'd and refresh'd."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts can argue down or mask your passions, tell me, what trespass is it that man should have them?"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"I got my dinner; and after I had enlightened my mind with a bottle of Burgundy, I at it again--and after two or three hours pouring upon it, with almost as deep attention as ever Gruter or Jacob Spon did upon a nonsensical inscription, I thought I made sense of it."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"Why does my pulse beat languid as I write this? and what made La Fleur, whose heart seem'd only to be tuned to joy, to pass the back of his hand twice across his eyes, as the woman stood and told it?"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)