Quotessence
Home / Authors / John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenPeopleEast Of EdenIfsKnowsWorldThinkingWritingTravels With CharleyLittlesWayMindWantLiteratureDoeHumansKindWholeSeemsSteinbeck

Famous John Steinbeck Quotes

“Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. My three [great teachers] did not tell - they catalyzed a burning desire to know. Under their influence, the horizons sprung wide and fear went away and the unknown became knowable. But most important of all, the truth, that dangerous stuff, became beautiful and very precious.”

KnowsMindHumansArtImportantMightBeautifulSpiritDesireThreeStuffTeacherInfluenceTeachingDangerousWideMediumsBurningHorizonHuman MindGreat TeacherSprungBurning Desire
Author:John Steinbeck
Create image

“I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.”

InspirationalMindBelieveHumansArtMightSpiritArtistEducationTeachTeacherTeachingMediumsHuman MindGreat ArtistGreat TeacherBest TeacherBeliveEducation And TeachersTeaching And EducationTeachers And TeachingTeaching EducationInspirational TeacherGreat TeachingBeing A TeacherTeachers DayTeacher AppreciationParents And TeachersInspirational EducationalArt TeacherThanking TeachersEducating OthersThank You TeacherTeaching ArtTeaching OthersHappy Teachers DayTeacher Appreciation WeekTeacher Training
Book:America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction
Create image

“I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.”

ThinkingHumansLooksEyeDogConvincedContemptNutsRescueAmazedMy DogPuppyCanineDog LoverVanishingDog TrainingPoodlesPuppy DogPet DogOld DogDog RescueGreat DogHuman EyesPoodle DogsPuppies And DogsCute DogGreat PetMan And DogFunny DogInspirational DogTwo DogsCute PuppyFunny PuppyGood DogPug DogsHumans And DogsDog HeavenHeaven And DogsLost DogPets In HeavenLabrador DogsDogs TumblrGrooming DogsBeagles The Dog
Book:The Portable Steinbeck
Create image

“Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches - nor is it a game for the cloistered elect, the tinhorn mendicants of low calorie despair. Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed. The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, their responsibilities have been decreed by our species. --speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1962”

NeedsHumansHas BeensLiteratureGamesChurchCitiesResponsibilityChangedDutyGrewNeededSpeechDespairSingingLowsEmptyFunctionSpeciesCriticalHallsPaleExclusiveNobelDecemberCaloriesPriesthoodHuman NeedsBanquetsBardsStockholmCity Hall
Book:A Life in Letters
Create image

“I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?”

MenWorldLifeBelieveHumansWellsHardDoneStoriesEvilLeftI BelieveKindnessAmbitionCleanHungerIllCaughtCrueltyDustGenerosityGood And EvilChipsEdenAvariceEast Of Eden
Author:John Steinbeck
Create image

“I believe there are techniques of the human mind whereby, in its dark deep, problems are examined, rejected or accepted. Such activities sometimes concern facets a man does not know he has. How often one goes to sleep troubled and full of pain, not knowing what causes the travail, and in the morning a whole new direction and a clearness is there, maybe the results of the black reasoning. And again there are mornings when ecstasy bubbles in the blood, and the stomach and chest are tight and electric with joy, and nothing in the thoughts to justify it or cause it.”

KnowsMenMindBelieveHumansDoeSometimesWholeProblemPainJoyI BelieveCausesBlackDarkSleepResultsMorningKnowingBloodActivityConcernTechniqueAcceptedReasoningJustifyHuman MindChestsEcstasyStomachBubblesElectricNot KnowingRejectedFacetsNew DirectionsClearness
Book:East of Eden
Create image

“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.”

WorldInspirationalMindBelieveHumansIdeasGovernmentFightingIndividualI BelieveWishFreedomLimitsValuableExploringEdenValuable ThingsEast Of EdenTravels With CharleyThis I BelieveMind Freedom
Book:East of Eden
Create image

“The Hebrew word, the word timshel - 'Thou mayest' - that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open...Why, that makes a man great...He can choose his course and fight it through and win...I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest'. ch 24”

MenWorldWayGivingHumansImportantSoulMightChoicesFightingUniverseCoursesWinningUniqueInstrumentsLovelyDestroyedHuman SoulEdenHebrewEast Of EdenImportant WordsUnique Things
Author:John Steinbeck
Create image

“We, or at least I, can have no conception of human life and human thought in a hundred years or fifty years. Perhaps my greatest wisdom is the knowledge that I do not know. The sad ones are those who waste their energy in trying to hold it back, for thy can only feel bitterness in loss and no joy in gain.”

KnowsFeelsTryingYearsHumansI CanJoyEnergyLossWasteHundredGainsHuman LifeFiftyConceptionBitternessHuman ThoughtGreatest Wisdom
Book:Travels with Charley in Search of America
Create image

“Life cannot be cut off quickly. One cannot be dead until the things he changed are dead. His effect is the only evidence of his life. While there remains even a plaintive memory, a person cannot be cut off, dead. And he thought, “It’s a long slow process for a human to die. We kill a cow, and it is dead as soon as the meat is eaten, but a man’s life dies as a commotion in a still pool dies, in little waves, spreading and growing back toward stillness.”

MenHumansLittlesPersonsLongStillsDiesProcessMemoriesCuttingGrowingEffectsChangedEvidenceRemainsWaveMeatPoolStillnessCows
Book:Novels and Stories, 1932-1937
Create image

“I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.”

ThinkingHumansDogConvincedContemptNutsRescueAmazedMy DogPuppyCanineDog LoverVanishingDog TrainingPoodlesPuppy DogPet DogOld DogDog RescueGreat DogPoodle DogsPuppies And DogsCute DogGreat PetMan And DogFunny DogInspirational DogTwo DogsCute PuppyFunny PuppyGood DogPug DogsHumans And DogsDog HeavenHeaven And DogsPets In HeavenLabrador DogsDogs TumblrGrooming DogsBeagles The Dog
Book:The Portable Steinbeck
Create image

“Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.”

MindHumansArtMightSpiritTeachTeacherTeachingMediumsHuman MindGreat ArtistGreat TeacherGood TeacherBest TeacherEducation And TeachersTeaching And EducationTeachers And TeachingTeaching EducationInspirational TeacherGreat TeachingBeing A TeacherGood TeachingTeachers DayTeacher AppreciationParents And TeachersInspirational EducationalArt TeacherThanking TeachersEducating OthersThank You TeacherTeaching ArtShort TeacherHappy Teachers DayTeacher Appreciation WeekTeacher Training
Book:America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction
Create image