“We get forwards in the world not so much by doing services, as receiving them: you take a withering twig, and put it in the ground; and then you water it, because you have planted it.”

— Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768), Paris

About Laurence Sterne

1713 – 1768

Irish-born English novelist, author of "Tristram Shandy".

“The brave only know how to forgive.”

“As we jogg on, either laugh with me, or at me, or in short do any thing—only keep your temper.”

“For every ten jokes, thou hast got a hundred enemies.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

“It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?”

“In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside.”

“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.”

“That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within.”

“Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.”