Robert Louis Stevenson

It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it.

I feel very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgment. You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; …

It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the hands of opportunity.

'I incline to Cain's heresy,' he used to say quaintly: 'I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.'

There's just ae thing I cannae bear, An' that's my conscience.

My body which my dungeon is, And yet my parks and palaces: — Which is so great that there I go All the day long to and fro.

Who comes tonight? We ope the doors in vain

Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will.This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from sea,

Dear Andrew, with the brindled hair Who glory to have thrown in air, High over arm, the trembling reed, By Ale and Kail, by Till and Tweed.

Let first the onion flourish there, Rose among roots, the maiden-fair, Wine-scented and poetic soul Of the capacious salad bowl.

Go, little book, and wish to all Flowers in the garden, meat in the hall, A bin of wine, a spice of wit, A house with lawns enclosing it, A living river by the door, A nightingale in the sycamore!

Of all my verse, like not a single line; But like my title, for it is not mine. That title from a better man I stole: Ah, how much better, had I stol'n the whole!

I've a grand memory for forgetting, David.

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.

Am I no a bonny fighter?

Each side, in these sort of civil broils, takes the name of honesty for its own.

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.

Children, you are very little, And your bones are very brittle.

The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

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.

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, And what can be the use of him is more than I can see. He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head; And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

Whenever the moon and stars are set, Whenever the wind is high, All night long in the dark and wet, A man goes riding by. Late in the night when the fires are out, Why does he gallop and gallop about?

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.

In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day.