174 quotes
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 and Other Papers (1881)
A man, Mr. Scrymgeour, may fall into a thousand perplexities, but if his heart be upright and his intelligence unclouded, he will issue from them all without dishonour.
The New Arabian Nights (1882)
Lastly no woman should marry a teetotaller, or a man who does not smoke. It is not for nothing that this "ignoble tobagie" as Michelet calls it, spreads all over the world.
Each has his own tree of ancestors, but at the top of all sits Probably Arboreal.
In the highlands, in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
And the young fair maidens
Quiet eyes.
Songs of Travel and Other Verses (1896)
And my heart springs up anew,
Bright and confident and true,
And the old love comes to meet me, in the dawning and the dew.
Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral.
An Inland Voyage (1878)
It is one of the worst things of sentiment, that the voice grows to be more important than the words, and the speaker than that which is spoken.
The Master of Ballantrae (1889)
There is no foreign land; it is the traveller only that is foreign, and now and again, by a flash of recollection, lights up the contrasts of the ear.
The Silverado Squatters (1883)
I have observed there are no persons so far away as those who are both married and estranged, so that they seem out of ear-shot or to have no common tongue.
The Master of Ballantrae (1889)
We do not go to cowards for tender dealing; there is nothing so cruel as panic; the man who has least fear for his own carcase, has most time to consider others.
Aes Triplex (1878)
The spirit, Sir, is one of mockery.
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.
Aes Triplex (1878)
Alas! in the clothes of the greatest potentate, what is there but a man?
The New Arabian Nights (1882)
One person I have to make good: myself. But my duty to my neighbor is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy—if I may.
When the torrent sweeps the man against a boulder, you must expect him to scream, and you need not be surprised if the scream is sometimes a theory.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)
I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.
Songs of Travel and Other Verses (1896)
'I incline to Cain's heresy,' he used to say quaintly: 'I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.'
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
We are all travelers in … the wilderness of this world … and the best that we find in our travels is an honest friend.
I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both; and I believe they both get paid in the end; but the fools first.
Kidnapped (1886)