Quote

Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral: a thing as simple and specious as a statue to the first glance, and yet on examination, as lively and interesting as a forest in detail.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Made
Inspired
Lively
Never
Mankind
Glances
Humanity
Happily
Specious
Interesting
Examination
Cathedral
Simple
Detail
Statue
Firsts
Forest
Cathedrals
First
Forests
Glance
Thing
Details
Statues

More quotes by Robert Louis Stevenson

Image
Friends: People who know you well, but like you anyway. The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
I have resolved that from this day on, I will do all the business I can honestly, have all the fun I can reasonably, do all the good I can willingly, and save my digestion by thinking pleasantly.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
So soon as prudence has begun to grow up in the brain, like a dismal fungus, it finds its first expression in a paralysis of generous acts.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
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
Image
I wish these flies would piss off.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
To be overwise is to ossify and the scruple-monger ends by standing stockstill.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
How do you like to go up in a swing, Up in the air so blue? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing Ever a child can do!
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
There comes an end to all things the most capacious measure is filled at last and this brief condescension to evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous, and independent denizens.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
It is a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will take care of themselves.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
In the other gardens And all up the vale, From the autumn bonfies See the smoke trail! Pleasant summer over And all the summer flowers, The red fire blazes, the grey smoke towers. Sing a song of seasons! Something bright in all, Flowers in the summer Fires in the fall!
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
A hanging in a good quarrel is an easy death they say, though I could never hear of any that came back to say so.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
Jew storekeepers have already learned the advantage to be gained from this [unlimited credit]: they lead on the farmer into irretrievable indebtedness, and keep him ever after as their bondslave hopelessly grinding in the mill.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
...those little people, my brownies, who do one half of my work for me while I am fast asleep, and in all human likelihood do the rest for me as well, when I am wide awake and fondly suppose I do for myself.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
Give us courage and gaiety and the quient mind . . .
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
There is indeed one element in human destiny that not blindness itself can controvert: whatever else we are intended to do, we are not intended to succeed failure is the fate allotted. It is so in every art and study it is so above all in the continent art of living well.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
The spirit, Sir, is one of mockery.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
When I say writing, O believe me, it is rewriting that I have chiefly in mind.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Image
You cannot run away from weakness you must some time fight it out or perish and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?
Robert Louis Stevenson