Quote

Strength and success they are above morality, above criticism. It seems then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it.

John Steinbeck

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

John Steinbeck
Age: 66 †
Born: 1902
Born: February 27
Died: 1968
Died: December 20
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
War Correspondent
Writer
Salinas
California
John Ernst Steinbeck
Jr.
John Ernst Steinbeck
John Ernest Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr
Steinbeck
Morality
Strength
Call
Success
Seems
Criticism

More quotes by John Steinbeck

Image
I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.
John Steinbeck
Image
Many are the stories I have heard about myself. I have mistresses I have never met. When I hear that I am a sodomist and a zoophalist then I shall know that I have reached the high point of fame, but I suppose I can hardly expect such exaltation for many years.
John Steinbeck
Image
Men all do about the same thing when they wake up.
John Steinbeck
Image
The last clear definite function of men—muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need—this is man.
John Steinbeck
Image
Perhaps the less we have, the more we are required to brag.
John Steinbeck
Image
It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him.
John Steinbeck
Image
Must the hunger become anger and the anger fury before anything will be done?
John Steinbeck
Image
This was an evil beyond thinking. The killing of a man was not so evil as the killing of a boat. For a boat does not have sons, and a boat cannot protect itself, and a wounded boat does not heal.
John Steinbeck
Image
There's nothing in the world like that first taste of beer.
John Steinbeck
Image
Strange how one person can saturate a room with vitality, with excitement. Then there are others, and this dame was one of them, who can drain off energy and joy, can suck pleasure dry and get no sustenance from it. Such people spread a grayness in the air about them.
John Steinbeck
Image
An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion.
John Steinbeck
Image
Learning to read is probably the most difficult and revolutionary thing that happens to the human brain and if you don't believe that, watch an illiterate adult try to do it.
John Steinbeck
Image
You're going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing. Even if you let yourself go fallow, the weeds will grow and the brambles. Something will grow.
John Steinbeck
Image
But 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. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.
John Steinbeck
Image
Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard.
John Steinbeck
Image
Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.
John Steinbeck
Image
I have seen too many men go down, and I never permit myself to forget that one day, through accident or under the charge of a younger, stronger knight, I too will go down.
John Steinbeck
Image
He saw something that makes a man doubtful of the constancy of the realities outside himself. It was the shocking discovery that makes a man wonder if I've missed this, what else have I failed to see?
John Steinbeck
Image
It is possible, even probable, to be told a truth about a place, to accept it, to know it and at the same time not to know anything about it.
John Steinbeck
Image
Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat. Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars.
John Steinbeck