For the forest takes away from you all excuse to die. There is nothing here to cabin or thwart your free desires. Here all impudences of the brawling world reach you no more.
Robert Louis StevensonDeath, like a host, comes smiling to the door; Smiling, he greets us, on that tranquil shore Where neither piping bird nor peeping dawn Disturbs the eternal sleep, But in the stillness far withdrawn Our dreamless rest for evermore we keep.
Robert Louis StevensonTo the old our mouths are always partly closed; we must swallow our obvious retorts and listen. They sit above our heads, on life's raised dais, and appeal at once to our respect and pity.
Robert Louis StevensonA man met a lad weeping. "What do you weep for?" he asked. "I am weeping for my sins," said the lad. "You must have little to do," said the man. The next day, they met again. Once more the lad was weeping. "Why do you weep now?" asked the man. "I am weeping because I have nothing to eat," said the lad. "I thought it would come to that," said the man.
Robert Louis StevensonHe is not dead, this friend; not dead, Gone some few, trifling steps ahead, And nearer to the end; So that you, too, once past the bend, Shall meet again, as face to face, this friend You fancy dead.
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