174 quotes
A child should always say what's true
And speak when he is spoken to,
And behave mannerly at table;
At least as far as he is able.
A Child's Garden of Verses (1885)
Be it granted me to behold you again in dying,
Hills of home!
Songs of Travel and Other Verses (1896)
"What is the Black Spot, Captain?" "That's a summons, mate."
Treasure Island (1883)
To make our idea of morality centre on forbidden acts is to defile the imagination and to introduce into our judgments of our fellow-men a secret element of gusto.
Across the Plains (1892)
Time passes quickly with lovers.
The New Arabian Nights (1882)
The time would fail me if I were to recite all the big names in history whose exploits are perfectly irrational and even shocking to the business mind.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)
It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. It is better to live and be done with it, than to die daily in the sick-room.
Aes Triplex (1878)
The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.
A Child's Garden of Verses (1885)
Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I ask, the heaven above
And the road below me.
Songs of Travel and Other Verses (1896)
It is the worst of all quaint and of all cheap ways of life that they bring us at last to the pinch of some humiliation.
The Silverado Squatters (1883)
"I am in the habit," replied the Prince, "of looking not so much to the nature of a gift as to the spirit in which it is offered."
The New Arabian Nights (1882)
The friendly cow all red and white,
I love with all my heart:
She gives me cream with all her might,
To eat with apple-tart.
A Child's Garden of Verses (1885)
A man finds he has been wrong at every preceding stage of his career, only to deduce the astonishing conclusion that he is at last entirely right.
Do you know what the Governor of South Carolina said to the Governor of North Carolina? It's a long time between drinks, observed that powerful thinker.
So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend.
Them that die will be the lucky ones!
Treasure Island (1883)
Hatred betrayed is hatred impotent.
The Master of Ballantrae (1889)
Ice and iron cannot be welded.
Weir of Hermiston (1896)
They were a rough lot indeed, as sailors mostly are: being men rooted out of all the kindly parts of life, and condemned to toss together on the rough seas, with masters no less cruel.
Kidnapped (1886)
For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.
Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1878)