Robert Louis Stevenson quotes

1850–1894 · Edinburgh, Scotland

• All who have meant good work with their whole hearts, have done good work, although they may die before they have the time to sign it. Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind.

• To be truly happy is a question of how we begin and not of how we end, of what we want and not of what we have.

• The cruellest lies are often told in silence. A man may have sat in a room for hours and not opened his teeth, and yet come out of that room a disloyal friend or a vile calumniator.

• There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy, we sow anonymous benefits upon the world, which remain unknown even to ourselves, or when they are disclosed, surprise nobody so much as the benefactor.

• Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.