Chapter 1.I. I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly consider’d how much depended upon what they were then doing; — that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps…

Chapter 2.I. Great wits jump: for the moment Dr. Slop cast his eyes upon his bag (which he had not done till the dispute with my uncle Toby about mid-wifery put him in mind of it)— the very same thought occurred. —’Tis God’s mercy, quoth he (to himself) that Mrs. Shandy has had so bad a time of it — else she might have been brought to bed seven times told, before one half of these knots could… Read the rest of this passage →

Chapter 3.III. . . . — And a chapter it shall have, and a devil of a one too — so look to yourselves. ’Tis either Plato, or Plutarch, or Seneca, or Xenophon, or Epictetus, or Theophrastus, or Lucian — or some one perhaps of later date — either Cardan, or Budaeus, or Petrarch, or Stella — or possibly it may be some divine or father of the church, St. Austin, or St. Cyprian, or Barnard, who… Read the rest of this passage →

Chapter 2.VIII. Dr. Slop was within an ace of being an exception to all this argumentation: for happening to have his green baize bag upon his knees, when he began to parody my uncle Toby —’twas as good as the best mantle in the world to him: for which purpose, when he foresaw the sentence would end in his new-invented forceps, he thrust his hand into the bag in order to have them ready to clap… Read the rest of this passage →

Chapter 4.I. Now I hate to hear a person, especially if he be a traveller, complain that we do not get on so fast in France as we do in England; whereas we get on much faster, consideratis considerandis; thereby always meaning, that if you weigh their vehicles with the mountains of baggage which you lay both before and behind upon them — and then consider their puny horses, with the very little… Read the rest of this passage →

Chapter 1.LII. As Obadiah loved wind-music preferably to all the instrumental music he carried with him — he very considerately set his imagination to work, to contrive and to invent by what means he should put himself in a condition of enjoying it. In all distresses (except musical) where small cords are wanted, nothing is so apt to enter a man’s head as his hat-band:— the philosophy of this…

Chapter 1.LII. As Obadiah loved wind-music preferably to all the instrumental music he carried with him — he very considerately set his imagination to work, to contrive and to invent by what means he should put himself in a condition of enjoying it. In all distresses (except musical) where small cords are wanted, nothing is so apt to enter a man’s head as his hat-band:— the philosophy of this…