Stephen Crane Quotes

“It was not well to drive men into final corners; at those moments they could all develop teeth and claws.”

Pt. VI
The Open Boat (1894)
Source: The Open Boat and Other Stories

“Half of tradition is a lie.”

Source: The Red Badge of Courage

“A MAN FEARED

A man feared that he might find an assassin;
Another that he might find a victim.
One was more wise than the other.”

“Tell her this
And more,—
That the king of the seas
Weeps too, old, helpless man.
The bustling fates
Heap his hands with corpses
Until he stands like a child
With surplus of toys.”

“The man had arrived at that stage of drunkenness where affection is felt for the universe.”

Source: Complete Poems of Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane book Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

Source: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

Stephen Crane Quotes about men

“It would be difficult to describe the subtle brotherhood of men that was here established on the seas. No one said that it was so. No one mentioned it. But it dwelt in the boat, and each man felt it warm him. They were a captain, an oiler, a cook, and a correspondent, and they were friends, friends in a more curiously iron-bound degree than may be common. The hurt captain, lying against the water-jar in the bow, spoke always in a low voice and calmly, but he could never command a more ready and swiftly obedient crew than the motley three of the dingey. It was more than a mere recognition of what was best for the common safety. There was surely in it a quality that was personal and heartfelt. And after this devotion to the commander of the boat there was this comradeship that the correspondent, for instance, who had been taught to be cynical of men, knew even at the time was the best experience of his life. But no one said that it was so. No one mentioned it.”

“When it came night, the white waves paced to and fro in the moonlight, and the wind brought the sound of the great sea's voice to the men on shore, and they felt that they could then be interpreters.”

Pt. III
The Open Boat (1894)

“None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and all of the men knew the colors of the sea. The horizon narrowed and widened, and dipped and rose, and at all times its edge was jagged with waves that seemed thrust up in points like rocks.”

Pt. VII
The Open Boat (1894)

“Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom —
A field where a thousand corpses lie.”

Pt. I
The Open Boat (1894)

“Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.”

Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War is Kind, st. 2
War Is Kind and Other Lines (1899)

“Unwind my riddle.
Cruel as hawks the hours fly;
Wounded men seldom come home to die;
The hard waves see an arm flung high;
Scorn hits strong because of a lie;
Yet there exists a mystic tie.
Unwind my riddle.”

Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War is Kind, p. 4
War Is Kind and Other Lines (1899)

“They were going to look at war, the red animal — war, the blood-swollen god. And they were deeply engrossed in this march.”

Source: Epigraph in " The Clan of No Name http://web.archive.org/20040803101258/www.geocities.com/stephen_crane_us/clannoname.html" (1899); published in the anthology Wounds in the Rain (1900)

Stephen Crane Quotes

“The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.”

Source: The Red Badge of Courage (1895), Ch. 3
Context: The line, broken into moving fragments by the ground, went calmly on through fields and woods. The youth looked at the men nearest him, and saw, for the most part, expressions of deep interest, as if they were investigating something that had fascinated them. One or two stepped with overvaliant airs as if they were already plunged into war. Others walked as upon thin ice. The greater part of the untested men appeared quiet and absorbed. They were going to look at war, the red animal — war, the blood-swollen god. And they were deeply engrossed in this march.

“I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.”

Source: The Red Badge of Courage (1895), Ch. 1 First lines.
Context: The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors.

Stephen Crane book The Black Riders and Other Lines

Source: The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895), XXIV
Context: I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,
"You can never—""You lie," he cried,
And ran on.

“The hard waves see an arm flung high;
Scorn hits strong because of a lie;
Yet there exists a mystic tie.
Unwind my riddle.”

“Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.”

Epigraph in " The Clan of No Name http://web.archive.org/20040803101258/www.geocities.com/stephen_crane_us/clannoname.html" (1899); published in the anthology Wounds in the Rain (1900) Context: Unwind my riddle. Cruel as hawks the hours fly; Wounded men seldom come home to die; The hard waves see an arm flung high; Scorn hits strong because of a lie; Yet there exists a mystic tie. Unwind my riddle.

“A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."”

Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War is Kind, No. 1, st. 1
War Is Kind and Other Lines (1899)

“Think as I think," said a man, "or you are abominably wicked; you are a toad." And after I thought of it, I said, "I will, then, be a toad.”

A Man Said to the Universe, No. 20
War Is Kind and Other Lines (1899)
Source: War Is Kind and Other Poems

“When the suicide arrived at the sky, the people there asked him: "Why?" He replied: "Because no one admired me.”

“Sometimes, the most profound of awakenings come wrapped in the quietest of moments.”

Source: Complete Poems of Stephen Crane

“Two or three angels
Came near to the earth.
They saw a fat church.
Little black streams of people
Came and went in continually.
And the angels were puzzled
To know why the people went thus,
And why they stayed so long within.”

“But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart.”

Source: Complete Poems of Stephen Crane

“When one exchanged the rowing-seat for a place in the bottom of the boat, he suffered a bodily depression that caused him to be careless of everything save an obligation to wiggle one finger. There was cold sea-water swashing to and fro in the boat, and he lay in it. His head, pillowed on a thwart, was within an inch of the swirl of a wave crest, and sometimes a particularly obstreperous sea came in-board and drenched him once more. But these matters did not annoy him. It is almost certain that if the boat had capsized he would have tumbled comfortably out upon the ocean as if he felt sure it was a great soft mattress.”

“In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter—bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."”

Pt. IV
The Open Boat (1894)

Stephen Crane book The Black Riders and Other Lines

Source: The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895), III

“You cannot choose your battlefield,
God does that for you;
But you can plant a standard
Where a standard never flew.”

“The wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
"Ha," he said,
"I see that none has passed here
In a long time."
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
"Well," he mumbled at last,
"Doubtless there are other roads."”

The Colors by Nathalia Crane
Misattributed

“Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.”

The Wayfarer, No. 13
War Is Kind and Other Lines (1899)

“A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats.”

Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War is Kind, st. 3
War Is Kind and Other Lines (1899)

“It was surprising that Nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden process in the midst of so much devilment.”

Pt. I
The Open Boat (1894)

“The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer.”

Source: The Red Badge of Courage (1895), Ch. 5

“"Truth," said a traveller,
"Is a rock, a mighty fortress;
"Often have I been to it,
"Even to its highest tower,
"From whence the world looks black.""Truth," said a traveller,
"Is a breath, a wind,
"A shadow, a phantom;
"Long have I pursued it,
"But never have I touched
"The hem of its garment."And I believed the second traveller;
For truth was to me
A breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom,
And never had I touched
The hem of its garment.”

Source: The Red Badge of Courage (1895), Ch. 9

Stephen Crane book The Black Riders and Other Lines

Source: The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895), XXVIII

“At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage.”

“If there is a witness to my little life,
To my tiny throes and struggles,
He sees a fool;
And it is not fine for gods to menace fools.”

Source: The Red Badge of Courage (1895), Ch. 9

Stephen Crane book The Black Riders and Other Lines

Source: The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895), XIII

“When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples. Any visible expression of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers. Then, if there be no tangible thing to hoot he feels, perhaps, the desire to confront a personification and indulge in pleas, bowed to one knee, and with hands supplicant, saying: "Yes, but I love myself." A high cold star on a winter's night is the word he feels that she says to him. Thereafter he knows the pathos of his situation.”

“Every sin is the result of a collaboration.”

Pt. VI
The Open Boat (1894)

Stephen Crane book The Blue Hotel

"The Blue Hotel", from The Monster and Other Stories (1898)

“He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was but the great death. He was a man.”

“It rained. The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled train, despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort in a trough of liquid brown mud under a low, wretched sky. Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him, though many discovered it to be made of oaths and walking sticks. He had rid himself of the red sickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the past. He had been an animal blistered and sweating in the heat and pain of war. He turned now with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks — an existence of soft and eternal peace.
Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden rain clouds.”

Source: The Red Badge of Courage (1895), Ch. 24

“The word is clear only to the kind who on peak or plain, from dark northern ice-fields to the hot wet jungles, through all wine and want, through lies and unfamiliar truth, dark or light, are governed by the unknown gods, and though each man knows the law, no man may give tongue to it.”

Source: The Red Badge of Courage (1895), Ch. 24

“He had fought like a pagan who defends his religion.”

"The Clan of No Name" (1899); published in the anthology Wounds in the Rain (1900)

“The wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
"Ha," he said,
"I see that none has passed here
In a long time."”

Source: The Red Badge of Courage (1895), Ch. 17