Explore "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" by Laurence Sterne on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Now don't let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the oaths we make free with in this land of liberty of ours are our own; and because we have the spirit to swear them, -- -- -imagine that we have had the wit to invent them too.
I'll undertake this moment to prove it to any man in the world, except to a connoisseur: -- -- -though I declare I object only to a connoisseur in swearing, -- -- -as I would do to a connoisseur in painting, etc., etc., the whole set of 'em are so hung round and befetish'd with the bobs and trinkets of criticism, -- -- -or to drop my metaphor, which by the by is a pity, -- -- -for I have fetch'd it as far as from the coast of Guiney; -- their heads, Sir, are stuck so full of rules and compasses, and have that eternal propensity to apply them upon all occasions, that a work of genius had better go to the devil at once, than stand to be prick'd and tortured to death by 'em.