A little amateur painting in water colors shows the innocent and the quiet mind. Robert Louis Stevenson More Quotes by Robert Louis Stevenson More Quotes From Robert Louis Stevenson When the teeth are shut the tongue is at home. Robert Louis Stevenson tongueteethhome The very flexibility and ease which make men's friendships so agreeable while they endure, make them the easier to destroy and forget. And a man who has a few friends, or one who has a dozen (if there be any one so wealthy on this earth), cannot forget on how precarious a base his happiness reposes; and how by a stroke or two of fate --a death, a few light words, a piece of stamped paper, a woman's bright eyes --he may be left, in a month, destitute of all. Robert Louis Stevenson friendsfateeye Respectability is a very good thing in its way, but it does not rise superior to all considerations. I would not for a moment venture to hint that it was a matter of taste; but I think I will go as far as this: that if a position is admittedly unkind, uncomfortable, unnecessary, and superfluously useless, although it were as respectableasthe Church of England, the sooner a man is out of it, the better for himself, and all concerned. Robert Louis Stevenson churchmenthinking Marriage is a step so grave and decisive that it attracts light-headed, variable men by its very awfulness. Robert Louis Stevenson variableslightmen If you want a person's faults, go to those who love him. They will not tell you, but they know. Robert Louis Stevenson faultspersonswant Hope looks for unqualified success; but Faith counts certainly on failure, and takes honorable defeat to be a form of victory. Robert Louis Stevenson victoryfaithlooks 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. Robert Louis Stevenson experiencelittlesworld 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. Robert Louis Stevenson educationfirststhinking There is a certain frame of mind to which a cemetery is, if not an antidote, at least an alleviation. If you are in a fit of the blues, go nowhere else. Robert Louis Stevenson fitminddepression I believe in an ultimate decency of things. Robert Louis Stevenson decencyultimatebelieve Youth now flees on feathered foot. Robert Louis Stevenson youthfeet Times are changed with him who marries; there are no more by-path meadows, where you may innocently linger, but the road lies long and straight and dusty to the grave. Idleness, which is often becoming and even wise in the bachelor, begins to wear a different aspect when you have a wife to support. Robert Louis Stevenson wifewiselying This is still the strangest thing in all man's travelling, that he should carry about with him incongruous memories. Robert Louis Stevenson shouldmenmemories 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 speaktableschildren Everyday life is a stimulating mixture of order and haphazardry. The sun rises and sets on schedule but the wind bloweth where it listeth. Robert Louis Stevenson windlifeorder The saddest object in civilization, and to my mind the greatest confession of its failure, is the man who can work, who wants work, and who is not allowed to work. Robert Louis Stevenson mindmencivilization But we are so fond of life that we have no leisure to entertain the terror of death. It is a honeymoon with us all through, and none of the longest. Small blame to us if we give our whole hearts to this glowing bride of ours, to the appetities, to honour, to the hungry curiosity of the mind, to the pleasure of the eyes in nature, and the pride of our own nimble bodies. Robert Louis Stevenson eyeheartdeath Give to me the life I love, Let the lave go by me, Give the jolly heaven above And the byway nigh me. Bed in the bush with the stars to see, Bread I dip in the river There's the life for a man like me, There's the life for ever. Robert Louis Stevenson starsriversmen It is the habitual carriage of the umbrella that is the stamp of Respectability. Robinson Crusoe was rather a moralist than a pietist, and his leaf-umbrella is as fine an example of the civilised mind striving to express itself under adverse circumstances as we have ever met with. Robert Louis Stevenson examplemindcivilization To the old our mouths are always partly closed; we must swallow our obvious retorts and listen. They sit above our heads, on life's raised dais, and appeal at once to our respect and pity. Robert Louis Stevenson retortspitymouths
