Robert Louis Stevenson’s life is as fascinating as his books. Born in Edinburgh in 1850. Died in Samoa in 1894. Author of Treasure Island, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped and much besides.
I wrote a book about some portraits of him fifteen years ago. (Above, RLS painted by GP Nerli in Samoa in 1892, Scottish National Portrait Gallery.)
And he’s vividly quotable. Here are a few examples:
“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.”
“Man is not truly one, but truly two.”
“If your morals make you dreary, depend on it, they are wrong.”
“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”
“Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. “
“There are no foreign lands. It is only the traveller who is foreign.”
“An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding.”
“Wealth is only useful for two things: a yacht and a string quartette.”
“You cannot run away from a weakness; you must sometimes fight it out or perish. And if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?”
“Every one lives by selling something, whatever be his right to it.”
“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.”
Do you have a particular favourite?
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