“Here lies one who meant well, tried a little, failed much: — surely that may be his epitaph of which he need not be ashamed.”

— Robert Louis Stevenson , book Across the Plains

Source: Across the Plains (1892), Ch. XII, A Christmas Sermon.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Here lies one who meant well, tried a little, failed much: — surely that may be his epitaph of which he need not be ash…" by Robert Louis Stevenson?

Robert Louis Stevenson photo

Robert Louis Stevenson 118

Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer 1850–1894

Related quotes

“Never feel shame for trying and failing, for he who never failed is he who never tried.”

Og Mandino book The Greatest Salesman in the World

Variant: Never feel shame for trying and failing for he who has never failed is he who has never tried.
Source: The Greatest Salesman in the World

“One is ashamed to say how little is needed for all men to be delivered from those calamities which now oppress them; it is only needful not to lie.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: Patriotism and Christianity http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Patriotism_and_Christianity (1896), Ch. 17

“He must be a man of little faith, who would fear to subject his own religion to the same critical tests to which the historian subjects all other religions. We need not surely crave a tender or merciful treatment for that faith which we hold to be the only true one.”

Max Müller (1823–1900) German-born philologist and orientalist

Preface (Scribner edition, 1872) 
Chips from a German Workshop (1866)
Context: He must be a man of little faith, who would fear to subject his own religion to the same critical tests to which the historian subjects all other religions. We need not surely crave a tender or merciful treatment for that faith which we hold to be the only true one. We should rather challenge it for the severest tests and trials, as the sailor would for the good ship to which he trusts his own life, and the lives of those who are dear to him. In the Science of Religion, we can decline no comparisons, nor claim any immunities for Christianity, as little as the missionary can, when wrestling with the subtle Brahmin, or the fanatical Mussulman, or the plain speaking Zulu.

“…we must go to the poets to see what they all meant by it; but the sum is an emotion — clear and strong as love and much clearer than logic,— whose charm lies in its unstable balance. The Transition is the equilibrium between the Love of God,— which is Faith, and the Logic of God,— which is Reason; between the round arch and the pointed. One may not be sure which pleases most, but one need not be harsh towards people who think that the moment of balance is exquisite. The last and highest moment is seen at Chartres where, in 1200, the charm depends on the constant doubt whether emotion or science is uppermost.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

“He who would accomplish little need sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much. He who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.”

James Allen book As a Man Thinketh

Source: As a Man Thinketh

“He who must be what he is, may curse his fate, but cannot change it; on the other hand, he who can transform himself has no one in the world but himself to blame for his failings, no one but himself to hold responsible for his dissatisfaction.”

Stanisław Lem book The Cyberiad

In "Tale of the Three Storytelling Machines of King Genius", §3
The Cyberiad (1967)

“Surely there is a fitness in the institution of the Lord's Supper as a standing memorial by which the church at large may commemorate the grandest act, and by which the heart of each individual believer may be reminded of his dearest friend. You, who have learned to love the Saviour, will prize His ordinance for the Saviour's sake. You who rejoice in the salvation purchased by His dying, will not fail with gratitude and faith to show the Lord's death until He come.”

William Morley Punshon (1824–1881) English Nonconformist minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 371.

“A most excellent person he is, and must be allowed a little for a little conceitedness; but he may well be so, being a man so much above others.”

John Evelyn (1620–1706) writer, gardener and diarist

Samuel Pepys Diary, November 5, 1665.
Criticism

“He then went on and preached a comforting discourse, after which he appointed a council to sit the next day, by which Sidney was tried, for having lied in the name of the Lord. In this council Joseph told him he must suffer for what he had done, that he should be delivered over to the buffetings of Satan, who would handle him as one man handleth another, that the less priesthood he had the better it would be for him, and that it would be well for him to give up his license.”

Lucy Mack Smith (1775–1856) American religious leader

The History of Joseph Smith by His Mother (1853), "Rigdon's Depression"

“it takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeded.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American aviator and author

Related topics