So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend.
— Lay Morals
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer, best known for Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Kidnapped, and for the poems of A Child's Garden of Verses.
Born and schooled in Edinburgh, he suffered serious chest illness for much of his life, yet wrote a great deal and travelled widely. In 1890 he settled in Samoa, where his writing moved from adventure toward a darker realism. He died there in 1894, at 44. A celebrity in his own time, he remains one of the most translated authors in the world.
Born and schooled in Edinburgh, he suffered serious chest illness for much of his life, yet wrote a great deal and travelled widely. In 1890 he settled in Samoa, where his writing moved from adventure toward a darker realism. He died there in 1894, at 44. A celebrity in his own time, he remains one of the most translated authors in the world.
Most quoted works
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 13
- Treasure Island 11
- A Christmas Sermon 3
- Kidnapped 3
- A Child's Garden of Verses 2
- An Apology for Idlers 2
I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson
There are two things that men should never weary of, goodness and humility; we get none too much of them in this rough world among cold, proud people.
— Kidnapped
There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.
— An Apology for Idlers
An intelligent person, looking out of his eyes and hearkening in his ears, with a smile on his face all the time, will get more true education than many another in a life of heroic vigils".
— An Apology for Idlers
Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
— Treasure Island
To be feared of a thing and yet to do it, is what makes the prettiest kind of a man.
— Kidnapped and Catriona
... Man is not truly one, but truly two... even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both...
— The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Alas! in the clothes of the greatest potentate, what is there but a man?
— The Suicide Club
A good conscience is eight parts of courage.
— Kidnapped and Catriona
Man is a creature who lives not upon bread alone, but principally by catchwords; and the little rift between the sexes is astonishingly widened by simply teaching one set of catchwords to the girls and another to the boys.
— Virginibus Puerisque
I have lost confidence in myself.
— The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
But besides that I was of an unforgiving disposition from my birth, slow to take offense, slower to forget it, and now incensed both against my companion and myself.
— Kidnapped
To My MotherYou too, my mother, read my rhymes / For love of unforgotten times, And you may chance to hear once more / The little feet along the floor.
— A Child's Garden of Verses
By the time a man gets well into his seventies his continued existence is a mere miracle.