How we cite our quotes:
Quote #4
Now, as it was plain to my father, that all souls were by nature equal,—and that the great difference between the most acute and the most obtuse understanding—was from no original sharpness or bluntness of one thinking substance above or below another,—but arose merely from the lucky or unlucky organization of the body, in that part where the soul principally took up her residence,—he had made it the subject of his enquiry to find out the identical place. (2.5.13)
Maybe identity is a matter of chance, after all. Since all souls are equal, individual identity has to comes from the body, not the mind, and the body (exhibit A: Tristram's penis) is subject to nature and fate. But Mr. Shandy thinks he can affect it by controlling the way Tristram is born. Honey, no.
Quote #5
A man's body and his mind, with the utmost reverence to both I speak it, are exactly like a jerkin, and a jerkin's lining;—rumple the one—you rumple the other. (3.4.1)
Peanut butter and jelly, bacon and eggs, dogs and little red wagons, body and mind: you can't have one without the other. Or, well, you could—but why would you? Identity doesn't rest in some mystical soul, but it also isn't solely material.
Quote #6
His rhetoric and conduct were at perpetual handy-cuffs (3.21.1)
Making an example out of Walter Shandy, Tristram describes identity as a perpetual conflict between what someone says and what he does. Should you judge a person by his ideals or his actions? Does it really matter if you meant well, if you still end up wrecking the car?