Robert Louis Stevenson

"In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose – what we want most to be we are."

"At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion."

"We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend."

"The moon has a face like the clock in the hall;She shines on thieves on the garden wall,On streets and fields and harbour quays,And birdies asleep in the forks of the trees."

"Even as good shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly and plainly on the face of the other. Evil besides (which I must still believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay. And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome. This, too, was myself."

"The most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek."

"A writer can live by his writing. If not so luxuriously as by other trades, then less luxuriously. The nature of the work he does all day will more affect his happiness than the quality of his dinner at night. Whatever be your calling, and however much it brings you in the year, you could still, you know, get more by cheating. We all suffer ourselves to be too much concerned about a little poverty; but such considerations should not move us in the choice of that which is to be the business and justification of so great a portion of our lives; and like the missionary, the patriot, or the philosopher, we should all choose that poor and brave career in which we can do the most and best for mankind."

"A friend is a gift you give yourself."

"An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding."

"Truth in spirit, not truth to the letter, is the true veracity,"

"I wished a companion to lie near me in the starlight, silent and not moving, but ever within touch. For there is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect."

"He who indulges habitually in the intoxicating pleasures of imagination, for the very reason that he reaps a greater pleasure than others, must resign himself to a keener pain, a more intolerable and utter prostration."

"Lord, behold our family here assembled. We thank You for this place in which we dwell, for the love accorded us this day, for the hope with which we expect the morrow; for the health, the work, the food and the bright skies that make our lives delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare us to our friends, soften us to our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavors; if it may not, give us strength to endure that which is to come that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath and in all changes of fortune and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another. We beseech of you this help and mercy for Christ's sake."

"I never drew a picture of anything that was before me but always from fancy, a sure sign of the absence of artistic eyesight; and I illustrated my lack of real feeling for art by a very early speech: 'Mama,' said I, 'I have drawed a man. Shall I draw his soul now?"

"Extreme busyness is a symptom of deficient vitality, and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity."

"Wine is bottled poetry"

"Literature, although it stands apart by reason of the great destiny and general use of its medium in the affairs of men, is yet an art like other arts. Of these we may distinguish two great classes: those arts, like sculpture, painting, acting, which are representative, or as used to be said very clumsily, imitative; and those, like architecture, music, and the dance, which are self-sufficient, and merely presentative."

"We all know what Parliament is, and we are all ashamed of it."

"And then, all of a sudden, he stopped, and his jaw dropped as though he had remembered something."The score!" he burst out. "Three goes o' rum! Why, shiver my timbers, if I hadn't forgotten my score!"And, falling on a bench, he laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. I could not help joining; and we laughed together, peal after peal, until the tavern rang again."

"From the bonny bells of heather,They brewed a drink long syne,Was sweeter far than honey,Was stronger far than wine. They brewed it and they drank it,And lay in blessed swound,For days and days together,In their dwellings underground. There rose a King in Scotland,A fell man to his foes,He smote the Picts in battle,He hunted them like roes. Over miles of the red mountain He hunted as they fled,And strewed the dwarfish bodies Of the dying and the dead. Summer came in the country,Red was the heather bell,But the manner of the brewing,Was none alive to tell. In graves that were like children’s On many a mountain’s head,The Brewsters of the Heather Lay numbered with the dead. The king in the red moorland Rode on a summer’s day;And the bees hummed and the curlews Cried beside the way. The King rode and was angry,Black was his brow and pale,To rule in a land of heather,And lack the Heather Ale. It fortuned that his vassals,Riding free upon the heath,Came on a stone that was fallen And vermin hid beneath. Roughly plucked from their hiding,Never a word they spoke:A son and his aged father –Last of the dwarfish folk. The king sat high on his charger,He looked down on the little men;And the dwarfish and swarthy couple Looked at the king again. Down by the shore he had them:And there on the giddy brink –“I will give thee life ye vermin,For the secret of the drink.”There stood the son and father And they looked high and low;The heather was red around them,The sea rumbled below. And up spoke the father,Shrill was his voice to hear:“I have a word in private,A word for the royal ear.“Life is dear to the aged,And honour a little thing;I would gladly sell the secret”,Quoth the Pict to the King. His voice was small as a sparrow’s,And shrill and wonderful clear:“I would gladly sell my secret,Only my son I fear.“For life is a little matter,And death is nought to the young;And I dare not sell my honour,Under the eye of my son. Take him, O king, and bind him,And cast him far in the deep;And it’s I will tell the secret That I have sworn to keep.”They took the son and bound him,Neck and heels in a thong,And a lad took him and swung him,And flung him far and strong And the sea swallowed his body,Like that of a child of ten;And there on the cliff stood the father,Last of the dwarfish men.“True was the word I told you:Only my son I feared;For I doubt the sapling courage,That goes without the beard. But now in vain is the torture,Fire shall not avail:Here dies in my bosom The secret of the Heather Ale."