Robert Louis Stevenson Quotes

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.

You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.

In each of us, two natures are at war "“ the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose "“ what we want most to be we are.

The saints are the sinners who keep on trying.

To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.

The man is a success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.

Wine is bottled poetry.

The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.

Everybody, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences.

The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain common work as it comes certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life.

You cannot run away from weakness; you must some time fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?

Make the most of the best and the least of the worst.

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.

Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.

Everyday courage has few witnesses. But yours is no less noble because no drum beats for you and no crowds shout your name.

I regard you with an indifference closely bordering on aversion.

The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.

Many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese—toasted mostly.

Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.

Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a poor substitute for life.

To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.

It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire.

That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.

There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.

Everyone who got where he is has had to begin where he was.

All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer.

Anyone can carry his burden, however heavy, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, until the sun goes down. And this is all that life really means.

There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the sweets come last.

The truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of the enemy.

It is a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will take care of themselves.

I never weary of great churches. It is my favorite kind of mountain scenery. Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral.

Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity.

Absences are a good influence in love and keep it bright and delicate.

The difficulty is not to write, but to write what you mean.

Marriage is one long conversation, chequered by disputes.

Marriage is like life - it is a field of battle, not a bed of roses.

Talk is by far the most accessible of pleasures. It costs nothing in money, it is all profit, it completes our education, founds and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed at any age and in almost any state of health.

I have resolved that from this day on, I will do all the business I can honestly, have all the fun I can reasonably, do all the good I can willingly, and save my digestion by thinking pleasantly.

When it comes to my own turn to lay my weapons down, I shall do so with thankfulness and fatigue, and whatever be my destiny afterward, I shall be glad to lie down with my fathers in honor. It is human at least, if not divine.

Saints are sinners who kept on going.

If a man loves the labour of his trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him.

No man is useless while he has a friend.

If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it they are wrong. I do not say "give them up," for they may be all you have; but conceal them like a vice, lest they should spoil the lives of better and simpler people.

Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same impression on Buddhists and vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our own.

In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer quite the other way I have to go to bed by day.

To forget oneself is to be happy.

The friendly cow, all red and white, I love with all my heart; She gives me cream with all her might, To eat with apple-tart.

If your morals make you dreary, depend on it, they are wrong.

For God's sake give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself!

To be idle requires a strong sense of personal identity.

Man is a creature who lives not upon bread alone, but primarily by catchwords.

The price we have to pay for money is sometimes liberty.

The little rift between the sexes is astonishingly widened by simply teaching one set of catchwords to the girls and another to the boys.

Everyone lives by selling something.

A man finds he has been wrong at every stage of his career, only to deduce the astonishing conclusion that he is at last entirely right.

To love is the great amulet that makes this world a garden.