John Steinbeck: Trending quotes
John Steinbeck trending quotes. Read the latest quotes in collectionSource: East of Eden
Source: The Pearl (1947), Ch. III
Source: East of Eden (1952)
“Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts… perhaps the fear of a loss of power.”
The Short Reign of Pippin IV (1957), p. 102
“A man so painfully in love is capable of self-torture beyond belief.”
Source: East of Eden
“A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.”
Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Source: Tortilla Flat
“None of it is important or all of it is.”
Introduction
The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951)
Context: "... Let us go," we said, "into the Sea of Cortez, realizing that we become forever a part of it; that our rubber boots slogging through a flat of eel-grass, that the rocks we turn over in a tide pool, make us truly and permanently a factor in the ecology of the region. We shall take something away from it, but we shall leave something too." And if we seem a small factor in a huge pattern, nevertheless it is of relative importance. We take a tiny colony of soft corals from a rock in a little water world. And that isn't terribly important to the tide pool. Fifty miles away the Japanese shrimp boats are dredging with overlapping scoops, bringing up tons of shrimps, rapidly destroying the species so that it may never come back, and with the species destroying the ecological balance of the whole region. That isn't very important in the world. And thousands of miles away the great bombs are falling and the stars are not moved thereby. None of it is important or all of it is.
“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.”
Source: East of Eden
“I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found.”
Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America