Quotes from Robert Louis Stevenson

There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their neighbors good. One person I have to make good: Myself. But my duty to my neighbor is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy if I may.

...if a man love the labor of any trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him... If you recognize in yourself some such decisive taste, there is no room for hesitation: follow your bent.... soon your every thought will be engrossed in that beloved occupation.

Some places speak distinctly. Certain dark gardens cry aloud for a murder; certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for shipwreck.

Nothing made by brute force lasts.

...if a man love the labor of any trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him...

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

But indeed, 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 the air, that emanation from the old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.

It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it.

"You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us."

By the time a man gets well into his seventies his continued existence is a mere miracle.

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

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

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.

The saddest object in civilization, and to my mind the greatest confession of its failure, is the man who can work, who wants work, and who is not allowed to work.

To be idle requires a strong sense of personal identity.

They say cowardice is infectious; but then argument is, on the other hand, a great emboldener.

The web, then, or the pattern, a web at once sensuous and logical, an elegant and pregnant texture: that is style, that is the foundation of the art of literature.

Sightseeing is the art of disappointment.

But of works of art little can be said.

I know what happiness is, for I have done good work.

Don't ever confuse motion with progress.

Do not forget that even as "to work is to worship" so to be cheery is to worship also, and to be happy is the first step to being pious.

Anyone can carry their burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do their work, however hard, for one day.

When we look in to the long avenue of the future, and see the good there is for each one of us to do, we realize, after all, what a beautiful thing it is to work, and to live, and to be happy.