Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
There is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True fellowship can provide deeper connection and understanding than solitude itself.
This quote by Robert Louis Stevenson suggests that there exists a form of companionship that transcends the common experience of being alone. It implies that when one achieves true fellowship, they encounter a state of being that is so profound that it resembles the ideal of solitude β a perfect balance of connection and introspection.
Themes
FellowshipSolitudeConnectionFriendshipUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of relationships, this quote can highlight the value of deep connections.
More from Robert Louis Stevenson
All quotes βLike a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done, and raised up again into sober and fearful gratitude by the many he had come so near to doing, yet avoided.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
It is the history of our kindnesses that alone make this world tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters . . . I should be inclined to think our life a practical jest in the worst possible spirit.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
Similar quotes
A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.
Samuel ButlerRead
We ought, all of us, to realize each other in this intense, pathetic, and important way. If you say that this is absurd, and that we cannot be in love with everyone at once, I merely point out to you that, as a matter of fact, certain persons do exist with an enormous capacity for friendship and for taking delight in other people's lives; and that such persons know more of truth than if their hearts were not so big.
William JamesRead
Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
Jane AustenRead
It is somethingit can be everything-to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking and boasting and reciting and fighting go on below.
Wallace StegnerRead
We read not only because we cannot know enough people, but because friendship is so vulnerable, so likely to diminish or disappear, overcome by space, time, imperfect sympathies, and all the sorrows of familial and passional life.
Harold BloomRead
Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be honest with each other.
George MacdonaldRead