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A man said to the universe: 'Sir, I exist!' 'However,' replied the universe. 'The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.

Stephen Crane

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Stephen Crane
Age: 81 †
Born: 1981
Born: November 1
Died: 1900
Died: June 5
Author
Baseball Player
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Screenwriter
Writer
Newark
New Jersey
Johnston Smith
Sense
Obligation
Facts
Created
Political
However
Men
Exist
Purpose
Fact
Funny
Universe
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More quotes by Stephen Crane

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I saw a man pursuing the horizonRound and round they sped.I was disturbed at thisI accosted the man.It is futile, I said,You can never-You lie, he cried,And ran on.
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In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, Who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said, ‘Is it good, friend?’ ‘It is bitter — bitter,’ he answered, ‘But I like it Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart.
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If there is a witness to my little life,To my tiny throes and struggles,He sees a foolAnd it is not fine for gods to menace fools.
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Think as I think, said a man, or you are abominably wicked you are a toad. And after I thought of it, I said, I will, then, be a toad.
Stephen Crane
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The word is clear only to the kind who on peak or plain, from dark northern ice-fields to the hot wet jungles, through all wine and want, through lies and unfamiliar truth, dark or light, are governed by the unknown gods, and though each man knows the law, no man may give tongue to it.
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There were many who went in huddled procession,They knew not wither,But, at any rate, success or calamityWould attend all in equality.There was one who sought a new road,He went into direful thickets,And ultimately he died thus, aloneBut they said he had courage.
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Doubtless there are other roads.
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Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden rain clouds.
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When the suicide arrived at the sky, the people there asked him: Why? He replied: Because no one admired me.
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Every sin is the result of collaboration.
Stephen Crane
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When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples.
Stephen Crane
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If I am going to be drowned – if I am going to be drowned – if I am going to be drowned, why in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate land and trees?
Stephen Crane
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I saw a man pursuing the horizon
Stephen Crane
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Such an assemblage of the spraddle-legged men of the middle class, whose hands were bent and shoulders stooped from delving and constructing, had never appeared to an Asbury Park summer crowd, and the latter was vaguely amused.
Stephen Crane
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Swift blazing flag of the regiment,Eagle with crest of red and gold,These men were born to drill and die.Point for them the virtue of slaughter,Make plain to them the excellence of killingAnd a field where a thousand corpses lie.
Stephen Crane
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When the prophet, a complacent fat man, Arrived at the mountain-top He cried: Woe to my knowledge! I intended to see good white lands And bad black lands— But the scene is grey.
Stephen Crane
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Philosophy should always know that indifference is a militant thing. It batters down the walls of cities and murders the women and children amid the flames and the purloining of altar vessels. When it goes away it leaves smoking ruins, where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat. It is not a children's pastime like mere highway robbery.
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He vaguely desired to walk around and around the body and stare the impulse of the living to try to read in dead eyes the answer to the Question.
Stephen Crane
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A very little boy stood upon a heap of gravel for the honour of Rum Alley. He was throwing stones at howling urchins from Devil's Row, who were circling madly about the heap and pelting him. His infantile countenance was livid with the fury of battle. His small body was writhing in the delivery of oaths.
Stephen Crane
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The voice of God whispers in the heart So softly That the soul pauses, Making no noise, And strives for these melodies, Distant, sighing, like faintest breath, And all the being is still to hear.
Stephen Crane