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Robert Louis Stevenson Quotes: 20

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

  • Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

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

  • Nothing like a little judicious levity.

  • Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.

  • I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.

    Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson
  • I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.

    Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes
  • That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.

  • Marriage: A friendship recognized by the police.

  • Every heart that has beat strongly and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind.

  • A friend is a gift you give yourself.

  • So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend.

    Lay Morals
  • There are two things that men should never weary of, goodness and humility; we get none too much of them in this rough world among cold, proud people.

    Kidnapped
  • Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

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

  • REQUIEMUnder the wide and starry skyDig the grave and let me lie:Glad did I live and gladly die,And I laid me down with a will.This be the verse you grave for me:Here he lies where he long'd to be;Home is the sailor, home from the sea,And the hunter home from the hill.

    Selected Poems
  • Death, like a host, comes smiling to the door;Smiling, he greets us, on that tranquil shoreWhere neither piping bird nor peeping dawnDisturbs the eternal sleep,But in the stillness far withdrawnOur dreamless rest for evermore we keep.

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

    An Apology for Idlers
  • An intelligent person, looking out of his eyes and hearkening in his ears, with a smile on his face all the time, will get more true education than many another in a life of heroic vigils".

    An Apology for Idlers
  • To travel hopefully is better than to have arrived.