Date: 1760-7

"But if he is so wicked and abandoned a wretch as you represent him;--if he robs,--if he stabs,--will not conscience, on every such act, receive a wound itself? Aye,--but the man has carried it to confession;--the wound digests there, and will do well enough, and in a short time be quite healed u...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

When told by another "that such a thing goes against his conscience,--always believe he means exactly the same thing, as when he tells you such a thing goes against his stomach;--a present want of appetite being generally the true cause of both."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"[T]his identical bowling-green instantly presented itself, and became curiously painted, all at once, upon the retina of my uncle Toby's fancy"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"For if you will turn your eyes inwards upon your mind, continued my father, and observe attentively, you will perceive, brother, that whilst you and I are talking together, and thinking and smoaking our pipes: or whilst we receive successively ideas in our minds, we know that we do exist, and so...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"But for sleep--I know I shall make nothing of it before I begin--I am no dab at your fine sayings in the first place--and in the next, I cannot for my soul set a grave face upon a bad matter, and tell the world--'tis the refuge of the unfortunate--the enfranchisement of the prisoner--the downy l...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1762

"Therefore, I have no one notion, / That is not form'd, like the designing / Of the peristaltick motion; / Vermicular; twisting and twining; / Going to work / Just like a bottle-skrew upon a cork."

— 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

"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)