Robert Louis Stevenson Quotes

Nobody's all good or bad, and nobody's all light or dark. Every human being has so many different aspects and facets to them. And there can be something noble and something really dark and dangerous going on in a person all at the same time.

The human being is a most curious creature. He thinks he has got one soul, and he has got dozens.

Everyone on the planet has a dark and a light. That's a multi-dimensional character.

There' s a duality in myself, and it's also what I try and instill in my roles.

Oh, I am an angel, though sometimes I wish I was more of a devil.

These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike.

A man of letters is often a man with two natures,--one a book nature, the other a human nature. These often clash sadly.

We as beings are very contradictory, complicated creatures that work in our best interest and against our best interest. In a certain way, I want my work to have all that messiness.

If I was ever a rare fine summer person, that's long ago. Most of us are half-and-half. The August noon in us works to stave off the November chills. We survive by what little Fourth of July wits we've stashed away. But there are times when we're all autumn people.

We bless and curse ourselves.

In civilized societies, we spend our lifetimes trying to become what is socially acceptable. We're dark and we're light. We all have both sides to us.

Every man is two men; one is awake in the darkness, the other asleep in the light.

Two souls dwell, alas! in my breast.

Conscience is the voice of the soul, the passions are the voice of the body. It is strange that these voices often contradict each other?

Everybody is God. Everybody is the devil. And if you don't realize you have both parts, that's what really causes problems.

Man has always been half-monster, half-dreamer.

Men love their vices and hate them at the same time.

One of my themes is that there is good and evil in everyone. I was not out to make these guys heroes. I really don't believe in heroes. The best of people have a dark side and it's a constant struggle for the better side to survive and to thrive.

Self-awareness is a trait that not only makes us human but also paradoxically makes us want to be more than merely human. As I said in my BBC Reith Lectures, “Science tells us we are merely beasts, but we don’t feel like that. We feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, forever craving transcendence

His life oscillates, as everyone's does, not merely between two poles, such as the body and the spirit, the saint and the sinner, but between thousands and thousands.

You had to come back to learn how to lose yourself, to be pilot and stray-witch, Hansel and Gretel in one.

It's okay to be two things at once and a paradox. Everybody is. As humans for survival we like to label things in a split second. It is how we don't implode from anxiety.

Before you condemn me my friends, I suggest you look deep inside you. For good and evil exists in us all.

Insight into the two selves within a man clears up many confusions and contradictions. It was our understanding that preceded our victory.

The heart of man is made to reconcile the most glaring contradictions.