Robert Louis Stevenson: Trending quotes

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Robert Louis Stevenson: 236 quotes10 likes

“Do you know what the Governor of South Carolina said to the Governor of North Carolina? It's a long time between drinks, observed that powerful thinker.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book The Wrong Box

The Wrong Box, ch. 8.

“Them that die will be the lucky ones!”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Treasure Island

Source: Treasure Island (1883), Ch. 20, Silver's Embassy.

“A faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

An Apology for Idlers.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)

“I suppose it is written that any one who sets up for a bit of a philosopher, must contradict himself to his very face. For here have I fairly talked myself into thinking that we have the whole thing before us at last; that there is no answer to the mystery, except that there are as many as you please; that there is no centre to the maze because, like the famous sphere, its centre is everywhere; and that agreeing to differ with every ceremony of politeness, is the only “one undisturbed song of pure concent” to which we are ever likely to lend our musical voices.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

Crabbed Age and Youth.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)

“Already an old man, he [Samuel Johnson] ventured on his Highland tour; and his heart, bound with triple brass, did not recoil before twenty-seven individual cups of tea.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

314.
Aes Triplex (1878)

“Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,
With eyes of gold and bramble-dew,
Steel-true and blade-straight,
The great artificer
Made my mate.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Songs of Travel and Other Verses

No. XXVI, My Wife.
Songs of Travel and Other Verses (1896)

“A child should always say what's true
And speak when he is spoken to,
And behave mannerly at table;
At least as far as he is able.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book A Child's Garden of Verses

Whole Duty of Children.
A Child's Garden of Verses (1885)

“I am in the habit of looking not so much to the nature of a gift as to the spirit in which it is offered.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book The Suicide Club

The New Arabian Nights. The Suicide Club (1882)

“I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both; and I believe they both get paid in the end; but the fools first.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Kidnapped

Kidnapped, ch. 14 (1886).

“What is the Black Spot, Captain?" "That's a summons, mate.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Treasure Island

Source: Treasure Island (1883), Ch. 3.

“Not every man is so great a coward as he thinks he is — nor yet so good a Christian.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book The Master of Ballantrae

The Master of Ballantrae. Mr. Mackellar's Journey (1889).

“Old and young, we are all on our last cruise.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

Crabbed Age and Youth.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)

“Dear Andrew, with the brindled hair
Who glory to have thrown in air,
High over arm, the trembling reed,
By Ale and Kail, by Till and Tweed.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Underwoods

Bk. I, To Andrew Lang.
Underwoods (1887)

“Just now, when every one is bound, under pain of a decree in absence convicting them of lèse-respectability, to enter on some lucrative profession, and labour therein with something not far short of enthusiasm, a cry from the opposite party, who are content when they have enough.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

An Apology for Idlers.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)

“Of all my verse, like not a single line;
But like my title, for it is not mine.
That title from a better man I stole:
Ah, how much better, had I stol'n the whole!”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Underwoods

Title page poem
Underwoods (1887)

“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

El Dorado.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)

“Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Prince Otto

Prince Otto, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“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.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book A Child's Garden of Verses

Bed in Summer, st. 1.
A Child's Garden of Verses (1885)

“It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. It is better to live and be done with it, than to die daily in the sick-room.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

315.
Aes Triplex (1878)

“We do not go to cowards for tender dealing; there is nothing so cruel as panic; the man who has least fear for his own carcase, has most time to consider others.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

314.
Aes Triplex (1878)