“The problem of education is twofold: first to know, and then to utter. Everyone who lives any semblance of an inner life thinks more nobly and profoundly than he speaks.”
“Doubtless the world is quite right in a million ways; but you have to be kicked about a little to convince you of the fact.”
Source: The Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Novels, Short Stories, Poems, Plays, Memoirs, Travel Sketches, Letters and Essays (Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer, containing Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped, Catriona and A Child's Garden of Verses
“Hope looks for unqualified success; but Faith counts certainly on failure, and takes honorable defeat to be a form of victory.”
Source: Virginibus Puerisque
“If you want a person's faults, go to those who love him. They will not tell you, but they know.”
Source: The Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Novels, Short Stories, Poems, Plays, Memoirs, Travel Sketches, Letters and Essays (Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer, containing Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped, Catriona and A Child's Garden of Verses
“Everyday life is a stimulating mixture of order and haphazardry. The sun rises and sets on schedule but the wind bloweth where it listeth.”
“If a man lives to any considerable age, it can not be denied that he laments his imprudences, but I notice he often laments his youth a deal more bitterly and with a more genuine intonation.”
Source: Selected Poetry and Prose of Robert Louis Stevenson
“There can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; to be affable, gay, ready, clear, and welcome.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated)
“To have suffered ... sets a keen edge on what remains of the agreeable. This is a great truth and has to be learned in the fire.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated)
“Wealth I ask not, hope nor love, Nor a friend to know me; All I seek, the heaven above And the road below me.”
“O wind, a-blowing all day long, O wind, that sings so loud a song!”
Source: The Complete Poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson: A Child's Garden of Verses, Underwoods, Songs of Travel, Ballads and Other Poems by a prolific Scottish writer, author of Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Kidnapped