Quote #38

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.

More from Laurence Sterne

  1. God tempers the wind, said Maria, to the shorn lamb.
  2. 'Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery', said I, 'still thou art a bitter draught'.
  3. Hail, ye small, sweet courtesies of life! for smooth do ye make the road of it.
  4. The sad vicissitude of things.
  5. Tant pis and tant mieux, being two of the great hinges in French conversation, a stranger would do well to set himself right in the use of …
  6. I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, 'Tis all barren!
  7. They order, said I, this matter better in France.
  8. L-d! said my mother, what is all this story about? - A Cock and a Bull, said Yorick - And one of the best of its kind I ever heard.

All Laurence Sterne quotes