2 quotations linked to A Christmas Sermon by or associated with Robert Louis Stevenson, with source notes, explanations and related topics.
Purpose, happiness, service, patience, ordinary moral effort, failure, friendship with oneself and humane judgment of others.
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“he must try to give happiness to others.”
Stevenson makes other people’s happiness part of ordinary moral duty even while admitting that a person may not possess a complete theory of goodness.
Source note: A Christmas Sermon, section II, published in Scribner’s Magazine in 1888 and preserved as Project Gutenberg #14535. The sentence is part of an ethical sermon rather than a guarantee that good intentions always produce good outcomes.
“One person’s happiness is as sacred as another’s”
The claim gives equal moral weight to another person’s well-being, supporting intervention against injury without treating one individual’s happiness as inherently more valuable than another’s.
Source note: A Christmas Sermon, section II; Project Gutenberg #14535. The surrounding paragraph contrasts personal revenge with defending a neighbour, so “sacred” functions as moral rhetoric rather than legal doctrine.