Laurence SterneThinkers

The Actor (n.) is the central ingredient in making theater happen. If necessary, they can get along without you. But you can't make theater without the actor.

Belief (n.) is ultimately the triumph of slight incidents and trifles over the mind which waft an immovable belief into the soul.

The Book (n.) is made too often in the same way that pharmacist make new mixtures... by pouring only out of one vessel into another.

The Book (n.) is often served like one serves a lord... that is, one learns their titles and then brags of their acquaintance.

Certainty (n.) is a most absurd foible. If one is in the right, it lessens the triumph, if one is in the wrong, it adds shame to the defeat.

Chance (n.) is the providence of adventurers.

Character (n.) is not disrupted by a single act. Men are strange compounds of contradictory qualities.

Clothing (n.) is shot through with morality. A man cannot dress without his ideas getting clothed at the same time.

Consistency (n.) is, in fact, very much in our nature. The great variety of contradictory appearances are just different attempts to gratify the same governing appetite.

Conversation (n.) is a traffic... and if you enter into it without some stock of knowledge to balance the account perpetually betwixt you, then the trade drops at once.

Digression (n.) is incontestably the life and soul of reading. Take that out and one cold eternal winter would reign in every page.