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The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.
Robert Louis Stevenson
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Robert Louis Stevenson
Age: 44 †
Born: 1850
Born: November 13
Died: 1894
Died: December 3
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
Short Story Writer
Songwriter
Writer
Edinburgh
Scotland
Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson
Robert Luis Stivensoni
Shih-ti-wen-sheng
Stivenson
Robert Loui Sitivensin
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson
Robert Lui Stivenson
RL Stivenson
RL Stevenson
RLS
Wish
Write
Book
Affect
Mean
Precisely
Writing
Difficulty
Reader
Literature
More quotes by Robert Louis Stevenson
His past was fairly blameless few men could read the rolls of their life with less apprehension yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done, and raised up again into sober and fearful gratitude by the many he had come so near to doing, yet avoided.
Robert Louis Stevenson
The web, then, or the pattern, a web at once sensuous and logical, an elegant and pregnant texture: that is style, that is the foundation of the art of literature.
Robert Louis Stevenson
As if a man's soul were not too small to begin with, they have dwarfed an narrowed theirs by a life of all work and no play until here they are at forty, with a listless attention, a mind vacant of all material of amusement, and not one thought to rub against another, while they wait for the train.
Robert Louis Stevenson
You have no idea, unless you have tried it, how endlessly long is a summer's day, that you measure out only by hunger, and bring to an end only when you are drowsy.
Robert Louis Stevenson
We look for some reward of our endeavors and are disappointed that not success, not happiness, not even peace of conscience, crowns our ineffectual efforts to do well. Our frailties are invincible, our virtues barren the battle goes sore against us to the going down of the sun.
Robert Louis Stevenson
I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.
Robert Louis Stevenson
These are my politics: to change what we can to better what we can but still to bear in mind that man is but a devil weakly fettered by some generous beliefs and impositions and for no word however sounding, and no cause however just and pious, to relax the stricture on these bonds.
Robert Louis Stevenson
To love playthings well as a child, to lead an adventurous and honorable youth, and to settle when the time arrives, into a green and smiling age, is to be a good artis en life and deserve well of yourself and your neighbor.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Teacher, tender comrade, wife, A fellow-farer true through life.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Everyone lives by selling something.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Youth now flees on feathered foot.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Benjamin Franklin went through life an altered man because he once paid too dearly for a penny whistle. My concern springs usually from a deeper source, to wit, from having bought a whistle when I did not want one.
Robert Louis Stevenson
If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it they are wrong. I do not say give them up, for they may be all you have but conceal them like a vice, lest they should spoil the lives of better and simpler people.
Robert Louis Stevenson
It is a mere illusion that, above a certain income, the personal desires will be satisfied and leave a wider margin for the generous impulse.
Robert Louis Stevenson
To love is the great amulet that makes this world a garden.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Let first the onion flourish there, Rose among roots, the maiden-fair, Wine-scented and poetic soul Of the capacious salad bowl.
Robert Louis Stevenson
The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain common work as it comes certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life.
Robert Louis Stevenson
We do not go to cowards for tender dealing there is nothing so cruel as panic the man who has least fear for his own carcase, has most time to consider others.
Robert Louis Stevenson
There is no progress whatever. Everything is just the same as it was thousands, and tens of thousands, of years ago. The outward form changes. The essence does not change.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Things looked at patiently from one side after another generally end by showing a side that is beautiful.
Robert Louis Stevenson
