To be honest, to be kind-to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few friends but these without capitulation-above all, on the same grim condition to keep friends with himself-here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.
Robert Louis StevensonI am told there are people who do not care for maps, and I find it hard to believe.
Robert Louis StevensonPerpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.
Robert Louis StevensonA little amateur painting in water colors shows the innocent and the quiet mind.
Robert Louis StevensonIt was Silver's voice, and before I had heard a dozen words, I would not have shown myself for all the world. I lay there, trembling and listening, in the extreme of fear and curiostiy, for, in those dozen words, I understood that the lives of all the honest men aboard depended on me alone.
Robert Louis StevensonThe seeming significance of nature's appearances, their unchanging strangeness to the senses, and the thrilling response which they awaken in the mind of man . . . If we could only write near enough to the facts, and yet with no pedestrian calm, but ardently, we might transfer the glamour of reality direct upon our pages.
Robert Louis Stevenson