T. SHANDY, V. 1. C. 12.
EJACULATION.
TIME wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen; the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny! than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more — every thing presses on — whilst thou art twisting that lock, — see! it grows grey; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make.
T. SHANDY, V. IV. C. 67.
FATALITY.
THERE is a fatality attends the actions of some men: order them as they will, they pass through a certain medium which so twists and refracts them from their true directions — that, with all the titles to praise which a rectitude of heart can give, the doers of them are nevertheless forced to live and die without it.
T. SHANDY, V. I. C. 10.
CONJUGAL HAPPINESS.
IT must have been observed by many a peripateric philosopher, that nature has set up by her own unquestionable authority certain boundaries and fences to circumscribe the discontent of man: she has effected her purpose in the quietest and easiest manner by laying him under almost insuperable obligations to work out his ease, and to sustain his sufferings at home. It is there only that she has provided him with the most suitable objects to partake of his happiness, and bear a part of that burden which, in all countries and ages, has ever been too heavy for one pair of shoulders. ’Tis true we are endued with an imperfect power of spreading our happiness sometimes beyond her limits, but ’tis so ordered, that from the want of languages, connections, and dependencies, and from the difference in education, customs and habits, we lie under so many impediments in communicating our sensations out of our own sphere, as often amount to a total impossibility.
SEN. JOURNEY, P. 13.
LIFE.
WHAT is the life of man! is it not to shift from side to side! — from sorrow to sorrow? — to button up one cause of vexation; — and unbutton another!
T. SHANDY, VOL. II. CHAP. 66.
TRIM’S EXPLANATION OF THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT.
— PR’YTHEE, Trim, quoth my father, — What do’st thou mean, by “honouring thy father and mother?”
Allowing them, an’ please your honour, three halfpence a-day out of my pay, when they grow old. — And didst thou do that, Trim? said Yorick. — He did indeed, replied my uncle Toby. — Then, Trim, said Yorick, springing out of his chair, and taking the Corporal by the hand, thou art the best commentator upon that part of the Decalogue; and I honour thee more for it, Corporal Trim, than if thou hadst had a hand in the Talmud itself.
T. SHANDY, VOL. III. CHAP. 32.
HEALTH.
O Blessed health! thou art above all gold and treasure; ’tis thou who enlargest the soul, — and openest all it’s powers to receive instruction, and to relish virtue. — He that has thee has little more to wish for! and he that is so wretched as to want thee, — wants every thing with thee.
T. SHANDY, VOL. III. CHAP. 33.
LOVE.
‘TIS sweet to feel by what fine-spun threads our affections are drawn together.
SEN. JOUR. P. 126.
SOLITUDE.
CROWDED towns, and busy societies, may delight the unthinking, and the gay — but solitude is the best nurse of wisdom.
LETTER III. TO HIS FRIENDS.
TRIBULATION.
THE way to Fame is like the way to Heaven — through much tribulation.
LETTER IX.
FRIENDSHIP.
FRIENDSHIP is the balm and cordial of life, and without it, ’tis a heavy load not worth sustaining.
LETTER LXXX.
SOLITUDE.
IN solitude the mind gains strength, and learns to lean upon herself: — in the world it seeks or accepts of a few treacherous supports — the feigned compassion of one — the flattery of a second — the civilities of a third — the friendship of a fourth — they all deceive, and bring the mind back to retirement, reflection, and books.
LETTER LXXXII.
FLATTERY.
DELICIOUS essence! how refreshing art thou to nature! how strongly are all its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side! how sweetly dost thou mix with the blood, and help it through the most difficult and tortuous passages to the heart.
SEN. JOUR. P. 210.
PERFECTION.
MAN has a certain compass, as well as an instrument; and the social and other calls have occasion by turns for every key in him; so that if you begin a note too high or too low, there must be a want either in the upper or under part, to fill up the system of harmony. — A polished nation makes every one its debtor; and besides, urbanity itself, like the fair sex, has so many charms, it goes against the heart to say it can do ill; and yet, I believe, there is but a certain line of perfection, that man, take him altogether, is empowered to arrive at — if he gets beyond, he rather exchanges qualities, than gets them. I must not presume to say, how far this has affected the French — But should it ever be the case of the English, in the progress of their resentments, to arrive at the same polish which distinguishes the French, if we did not lose the politesse de caeur, which inclines men more to humane actions, than courteous ones — we should at least lose that distinct variety and originality of character, which distinguishes them, not only from each other, but from all the world besides.
SEN. JOUR. P. 171.
FORGIVENESS.
THE brave only know how to forgive; — it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at. — Cowards have done good and kind actions, — cowards have even fought — nay sometimes even conquered; but a coward never forgave. — It is not in his nature; — the power of doing it flows only from a strength and greatness of soul, conscious of its own force and security, and above the little temptations of resenting every fruitless attempt to interrupt its happiness.
SERM. XII. P. 244.
FAVOURS.
IN returning favours, we act differently from what we do in conferring them: in the one case we simply consider what is best, — in the other what is most acceptable. The reason is, that we have a right to act according to our own ideas of what will do the party most good, in the case where we bestow a favour; — but where we return one, we lose this right, and act according to his conceptions, who has obliged us, and endeavour to repay in such a manner as we think it most likely to be accepted in discharge of the obligation.
SERM. XIII. P. 260.
RUSTIC FELICITY.
MANY are the silent pleasures of the honest peasant; who rises cheerfully to his labour: — look into his dwelling, — where the scene of every man’s happiness chiefly lies; — he has the same domestic endearments, — as much joy and comfort in his children, — and as flattering hopes of their doing well, — to enliven his hours and glad his heart, as you could conceive in the most affluent station. — And I make no doubt, in general, but if the true account of his joys and sufferings were to be ballanced with those of his betters, — that the upshot would prove to be little more than this, — that the rich man had the more meat, — but the poor man the better stomach; — the one had more luxury, — more able physicians to attend and set him to rights; — the other, more health and soundness in his bones, and less occasion for their help; — that, after these two articles betwixt them were balanced, — in all other things they stood upon a level: — that the sun shines as warm, — the air blows as fresh, and the earth breathes as fragrant upon the one as the other; and that they have an equal share in all the beauties and real benefits of nature.
SERM. XLIV. P. 260.
DIFFERENCE IN MEN.
POVERTY, exile, loss of fame or friends, the death of children, the dearest of all pledges of a man’s happiness, make not equal impressions upon everytemper. — You will see one man undergo, with scarce the expence of a sigh, — what another, in the bitterness of his soul, would go mourning for all his life long: —
nay, a hasty word, or an unkind look, to a soft and tender nature, will strike deeper than a sword to the hardened and senseless. — If these reflections hold true with regard to misfortunes, — they are the same with regard to enjoyments: — we are formed differently, — have different tastes and perceptions of things; — by the force of habit, education, or a particular cast of mind, — it happens that neither the use or possession of the same enjoyments and advantages, produce the same happiness and contentment; — but that it differs in every man almost according to his temper and complexion: so that the self-same happy accidents in life, which shall give raptures to the choleric or sanguine man, shall be received with indifference by the cold and phlegmatic; — and so oddly perplexed are the accounts of both human happiness and misery in this world, — that trifles, light as air, shall be able to make the hearts of some men sing for joy; — at the same time that others, with real blessings and advantages, without the power of using them, have their hearts heavy and discontented.
Alas! if the principles of contentment are not within us, — the height of station and worldly grandeur will as soon add a cubit to a man’s stature as to his happiness.
SERMON XLIV. P. 258
AGAINST HASTY OPINION.
THERE are numbers of circumstances which attend every action of a man’s life, which can never come to the knowledge of the world, — yet ought to be known, and well weighed, before sentence with any justice can be passed upon him. — A man may have different views and a different sense of things from what his judges have; and what he understands and feels and what passes within him, may be a secret treasured up deeply there for ever — A man, through bodily infirmity, or some complectional defect, which perhaps is not in his power to correct, may be subject to inadvertencies, — to starts — and unhappy turns of temper; he may lay open to snares he is not always aware of; or, through ignorance and want of information and proper helps, he may labour in the dark: — in all which cases, he may do many things which are wrong in themselves, and yet be innocent; — at least an object rather to be pitied than censured with severity and ill will. — These are difficulties which stand in every one’s way in the forming a judgment of the characters of others.
SERMON XLIV. P. 255.
VANITY.
VANITY bids all her sons to be generous and brave, — and her daughters to be chaste and courteous. — But why do we want her instructions? — Ask the comedian who is taught a part he feels not. —
SERMON XVII, PAGE, 45.
AFFECTED HONESTY.
LOOK out of your door, — take notice of that man: see what disquieting, intriguing, and shifting, he is content to go through, merely to be thought a man of plain-dealing: — three grains of honesty would save him all this trouble — alas! he has them not. —
SERMON XVII, PAGE, 45.
AFFECTED PIETY.
BEHOLD a second, under a show of piety hiding the impunities of a debauched life: — he is just entering the house of God: — would he was more pure — or less pious: — but then he could not gain his point.
IBID. PAGE, 46.
AFFECTED SANCTITY.
ABSERVE a third going on almost in the same track, with what an inflexible sanctity of deportment he sustains himself as he advances: — every line in his face writes abstinence; — every stride looks like a check upon his desires: see, I beseech you, how he is cloak’d up with sermons, prayers, and sacraments; and so bemuffled with the externals of religion, that he has not a hand to spare for a worldly purpose; — he has armour at least — Why does he put it on? Is there no serving God without all this? Must the garb of religion be extended so wide to the danger of its rending? — Yes truly, or it will not hide the secret — and, what is that? — That the saint has no religion at all.
SERMON XVII P. 46.
OSTENTATIOUS GENEROSITY.
— BUT here comes GENEROSITY; giving — not to a decayed artist — but to the arts and sciences themselves. — See, — he builds not a chamber in the wall apart for the prophet; but whole schools and colleges for those who come after. Lord! how they will magnify his name!— ’tis in capitals already; the first — the highest, in the gilded rent-roll of every hospital and asylum. —
— One honest tear shed in private over the unfortunate, is worth it all.
SERMON XVII. PAGE, 47.
OPINION.
WE are perpetually in such engagements and situations, that ’tis our duties to speak what our opinions are — but God forbid that this ever should be done but from its best motive — The sense of what is due to virtue, governed by discretion and the utmost fellowfeeling: were we to go on otherwise, beginning with the great broad cloak of hypocrisy, and so down through all its little trimmings and facings, tearing away without mercy all that look’d seemly, — we should leave but a tatter’d world of it.
SERMON XVII. P. 50
DEFAMATION,
DOES humanity clothe and aducate the unknown orphan? — Poverty thou hast no genealogies: — See! is he not the father of the child? Thus do we rob heroes of the best part of their glory — their virtue. Take away the motive of the act, you take away all that is worth having in it; — wrest it to ungenerous ends, you load the virtuous man who did it with infamy: — undo it all — I beseech you: give him back his honour, — restore the jewel you have taken from him — replace him in the eye of the world —
It is too late.
IBID. P. 52
TYRANNY.
IT is the mild and quiet half of the world, who are generally outraged and borne down by the other half of it: but in this they have the advantage; whatever be the sense of their wrongs, that pride stands not so watchful a centinel over their forgiveness, as it does in the breasts of the fierce and froward; we should all of us, I believe, be more forgiving than we are, would the world but give us leave; but it is apt to interpose its ill-offices in remissions, especially of this kind: the truth is, it has its laws, to which the heart is not always a party; and acts so like an unfeeling engine in all cases without distinction, that it requires all the firmness of the most settled humanity to bear up against it.
SERMON XVIII, P. 61.
RELIGION.
THERE are no principles but those of religion to be depended on in cases of real distress, and that these are able to encounter the worst emergencies; and to bear us up under all the changes and chances to which our life is subject.
SERMON XV. P. 12.
ELOQUENCE.
GREAT is the power of eloquence; but never is it so great as when it pleads along with nature, and the culprit is a child strayed from his duty, and returned to it again with tears.
SERMON XX. P. 101
GENEROSITY.
GENEROSITY sorrows as much for the overmatched, as Pity herself does.
IBID.
SOCIETY.
NOTWITHSTANDING all we meet with in books, in many of which, no doubt, there are a good many handsome things said upon the sweets of retirement, &c. . . . yet still “it is notgood for man to be alone:” nor can all which the cold-hearted pedant stuns our ears with upon the subject, ever give one answer of satisfaction to the mind; in the midst of the loudest vauntings of philosophy, Nature will have her yearnings for society and friendship; — a good heart wants some object to be kind to — and the best parts of our blood, and the purest of our spirits, suffer most under the destitution.
Let the torpid monk seek heaven comfortless and alone. — God speed him! For my own part, I fear, I should never so find the way: let me be wise and religious — but let me be Man: wherever thy Providence places me, or whatever be the road I take to get to thee — give me some companion in my journey, be it only to remark to, How our shadows lengthen as the sun goes down; — to whom I may say, How fresh is the face of Nature! How sweet the flowers of the field! How delicious are these fruits!
SERMON XVIII. P. 60.
DISSATISFACTION.
I PITY the men whose natural pleasures are burdens, and who fly from joy (as these splenetic and
morose souls do), as if it was really an evil in itself.
SERMON XXII. P. 145.
SORROW AND HEAVINESS OF HEART.
IF there is an evil in this world, ’tis sorrow and heaviness of heart. — The loss of goods, — of health, — of coronets and mitres, are only evil, as they occasion sorrow; — take that out — the rest is fancy, and dwelleth only in the head of man.
Poor unfortunate creature that he is! as if the causes of anguish in the heart were not enow — but he must fill up the measure with those of caprice; and not only walk in a vain shadow, — but disquiet himself in vain too.
Complete Works of Laurence Sterne Page 139