Robert Louis Stevenson Quotes

We all know that we're going to die, but we don't know when. That's not a blessing, that's a curse.

Time is the king of all men, he is their parent and their grave, and gives them what he will and not what they crave.

Among all the vicissitudes of life, which vary in each individual's experience, there is one event which sooner or later comes to everyone - Death!

We measure our days out in steps of uncertainty not turning to see how far we've come. And peer down the highway from here to eternity and reach out for love on the run.

As much as we'd like to think life is sacred, there's not a lot of evidence for that. The universe is maddeningly casual, giving and taking it.

Men's fortunes are on a wheel, which in its turning suffers not the same man to prosper for ever.

Why should I ask the wise men: Whence is my beginning? I am busy with the thought: Where will be my end?

A lot of people have great hope, and a lot of people who have great hope live. And, some of them who have great hope die. So it's not that hope is going to save you.

The moral is that a career can be gone in an instant. And all you have in this world are the people you love.

When Fortune smiles, I smile to think how quickly she will frown.

Life and death matters, yes. And the question of how to behave in this world, how to go in the face of everything. Time is short and the water is rising.

Our time on Earth is so random.

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

Birth and death; we all move between these two unknowns.

No blessing lasts forever.

Whatever fortune has raised to a height, she has raised only to cast it down.

Call no man happy before he dies, he is at best but fortunate.

Nothing in life is promised except death.

Wind and fortune are not lasting.

The two grand tyrants of the Earth, Time and Chance.

I had to make my history quick because there would be no future, merely a gossamer world blown about on the zeitgeist, till zeitgeist, the wind of the times, is blasted away by kamikaze, the wind of God.

You can't change what time has in store for you, as the only constant that I've known is change.

None can hold fortune still and make it last.

A little while with grief and laughter, And then the day will close; The shadows gather ... what comes after No man knows.

Oh, Vanity of vanities! How wayward the decrees of Fate are; How very weak the very wise, How very small the very great are!