Robert Louis Stevenson Quotes: Sources, Meanings & Themes

A Christmas Sermon, section III, first published in Scribner’s Magazine in 1888; Project Gutenberg #14535. Stevenson writes that although a person may not know exactly what goodness is or what will make another person happy, he must still try to be good and try to give happiness to others. The inherited section-II note is corrected here after direct source review. This is historical ethical / Christian-sermon argument rather than a guarantee of emotional outcomes.

A Christmas Sermon, section III, Project Gutenberg #14535. In the discussion of intervention, revenge and defending a neighbour, Stevenson says one person’s happiness is as sacred as another’s and argues for defending the injured party when both cannot be protected. The inherited section-II note is corrected here after direct source review; “sacred” is moral rhetoric, not modern legal doctrine.

“An Apology for Idlers,” 1877; evidence text in Project Gutenberg editions. The sentence belongs to Stevenson’s broader defense of leisure and sociability against relentless busyness.

‘An Apology for Idlers,’ represented in Project Gutenberg #69825, a 1905 Thomas B. Mosher reprint of the essay first published in the Cornhill Magazine in July 1877. ‘There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy’ appears in Stevenson's argument that cheerfulness can confer anonymous benefits on others. It remains provocative conduct-of-life essay rhetoric rather than clinical mental-health guidance or a universally binding moral duty.

Essay “El Dorado.”

Essays in the Art of Writing, “On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature”; Project Gutenberg #492. “Difficulty” here concerns literary form and craft, not a universal claim that hardship automatically makes things better.

Essays in the Art of Writing, “On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature,” represented by the 1905 Chatto & Windus edition in Project Gutenberg #492. The collection is posthumous; the excerpt concerns literary aesthetics.

Familiar Studies of Men and Books, essay ‘Henry David Thoreau: His Character and Opinions,’ section V, Project Gutenberg #425, transcribed from the 1896 Chatto & Windus edition. The surrounding paragraph quotes several Thoreau statements, but ‘To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming...’ is Stevenson's own connective judgment before he returns to quoted Thoreau language. It therefore remains Stevenson literary-biographical criticism rather than a Thoreau quotation or a clinical rule about self-development.

Memories and Portraits, in Stevenson’s reflection on graves and failed lives; Project Gutenberg #381. The sentence is literary commemoration, not a claim that every defeat is heroic.

Memories and Portraits; Project Gutenberg #381. The surrounding passage describes friendship, mortality and memory; the architectural metaphor is kept as grief writing rather than literal psychology.

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, “Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case,” Project Gutenberg #42. This is Jekyll’s fictional account of moral and psychological division inside the novel, not a medical or psychological diagnosis.

Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, “Cheylard and Luc,” Project Gutenberg #535. Stevenson follows the sentence by calling movement “the great affair” and describing the physical needs and difficulties of the road; it is literary travel reflection, not contemporary destination guidance.