The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

There is nothing more pleasing to a traveller——or more terrible to travel-writers, than a large rich plain; especially if it is without great rivers or bridges; and presents nothing to the eye, but one unvaried picture of plenty: for after they have once told you, that ’tis delicious! or delightful! (as the case happens)—that the soil was grateful, and that nature pours out all her abundance, &c. . . . they have then a large plain upon their hands, which they know not what to do with—and which is of little or no use to them but to carry them to some town; and that town, perhaps of little more, but a new place to start from to the next plain——and so on. —This is most terrible work; judge if I don’t manage my plains better.

Quoted on September 30, 2025

Was I in a condition to stipulate with Death, as I am this moment with my apothecary, how and where I will take his clyster——I should certainly declare against submitting to it before my friends; and therefore I never seriously think upon the mode and manner of this great catastrophe, which generally takes up and torments my thoughts as much as the catastrophe itself; but I constantly draw the curtain across it with this wish, that the Disposer of all things may so order it, that it happen not to me in my own house——but rather in some decent inn——at home, I know it,——the concern of my friends, and the last services of wiping my brows, and smoothing my pillow, which the quivering hand of pale affection shall pay me, will so crucify my soul; that I shall die of a distemper which my physician is not aware of: but in an inn, the few cold offices I wanted, would be purchased with a few guineas, and paid me with an undisturbed, but punctual attention.

Quoted on September 30, 2025

It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, that it assimulates every thing to itself as proper nourishment; and, from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the stronger by every thing you see, hear, read, or understand. This is of great use.

Quoted on July 18, 2025

—I mean, answer'd Dr. Slop, he would be denied the benefits of the last sacraments. Pray how many have you in all, said my uncle Toby, for I always forget? - Seven, answered Dr. Slop. Humph! — said my uncle Toby; tho' not accented as a note of acquiescence, —but as an interjection of that particular species of surprize, when a man, in looking into a drawer, finds more of a thing than he expected.

Quoted on July 16, 2025

Writing, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation. As no one, who knows what he is about in good company, would venture to talk all;——so no author, who understands the just boundaries of decorum and good-breeding, would presume to think all: The truest respect which you can pay to the reader’s understanding, is to halve this matter amicably, and leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself.

For my own part, I am eternally paying him compliments of this kind, and do all that lies in my power to keep his imagination as busy as my own.

Quoted on July 14, 2025

[The people of Denmark are equal. But here in England....]
With us, you see, the case is quite different; — we are all ups and downs in this matter;— you are a great genius;- - or 'tis fifty to one, Sir, you are a great dunce and a blockhead;---not that there is a total want of intermediate steps,— no, we are not so irregular as that comes to;— but the two extremes are more common, and in a greater degree in this unsettled island, where nature, in her gifts and dispositions of this kind, is most whimsical and capricious; fortune herself not being more so in the bequest of her goods and chattels than she.

Quoted on July 7, 2025

But I must here, once for all, inform you, that all this will be more exactly delineated and explain’d in a map, now in the hands of the engraver, which, with many other pieces and developements of this work, will be added to the end of the twentieth volume,—not to swell the work,—I detest the thought of such a thing;—but by way of commentary, scholium, illustration, and key to such passages, incidents, or innuendos as shall be thought to be either of private interpretation, or of dark or doubtful meaning, after my life and my opinions shall have been read over (now don’t forget the meaning of the word) by all the 28 world;——which, betwixt you and me, and in spite of all the gentlemen-reviewers in Great Britain, and of all that their worships shall undertake to write or say to the contrary,—I am determined shall be the case.

Quoted on July 7, 2025

That of all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing it is the best——I’m sure it is the most religious——for I begin with writing the first sentence——and trusting to Almighty God for the second.

Quoted on June 27, 2025

For what is war? what is it, Yorick, when fought as ours has been, upon principles of liberty, and upon principles of honour——what is it, but the getting together of quiet and harmless people, with their swords in their hands, to keep the ambitious and the turbulent within bounds?

Quoted on September 30, 2025

What a jovial and a merry world would this be, may it please your worships, but for that inextricable labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, want, grief, discontent, melancholy, large jointures, impositions, and lies!

Quoted on September 30, 2025

And so, with this moral for the present, may it please your worships and your reverences, I take my leave of you till this time twelve-month, when, (unless this vile cough kills me in the meantime) I’ll have another pluck at your beards, and lay open a story to the world you little dream of.

Quoted on September 30, 2025

Is it not a shame to make two chapters of what passed in going down one pair of stairs? for we are got no farther yet than to the first landing, and there are fifteen more steps down to the bottom; and for aught I know, as my father and my uncle Toby are in a talking humour, there may be as many chapters as steps:——let that be as it will, Sir, I can no more help it than my destiny:—A sudden impulse comes across me——drop the curtain, Shandy——I drop it—Strike a line here across the paper, Tristram—I strike it—and hey for a new chapter.

Quoted on September 30, 2025

All I know of the matter is—when I sat down, my intent was to write a good book; and as far as the tenuity of my understanding would hold out—a wise, aye, and a discreet—taking care only, as I went along, to put into it all the wit and the judgment (be it more or less) which the great Author and Bestower of them had thought fit originally to give me———so that, as your worships see—’tis just as God pleases.

Quoted on September 30, 2025

I seldom swear or curse at all—I hold it bad——but if I fall into it by surprize, I generally retain so much presence of mind (right, quoth my uncle Toby) as to make it answer my purpose——that is, I swear on till I find myself easy.

Quoted on September 30, 2025

By this contrivance the machinery of my work is of a species by itself; two contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciled, which were thought to be at variance with each other. In a word, my work is disgressive, and it is progressive too--and at the same time.

Quoted on December 1, 2010

As for the Argumentum Tripodium, which is never used but by the woman against the man, --

Quoted on December 1, 2010

. . . -for each one's sorrow's, thou hadst a tear, -for each man's need, thou hadst a shilling.

Quoted on May 19, 2010