Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their neighbors good. One person I have to make good: Myself. But my duty to my neighbor is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy if I may.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of focusing on self-improvement while promoting happiness in others.
Robert Louis Stevenson highlights the notion that while we might feel a moral obligation to improve our neighbors, our primary responsibility lies in bettering ourselves. However, our interaction with others should aim at bringing happiness rather than enforcing moralistic judgments, suggesting that personal happiness can foster positive relationships and communal wellbeing.
Themes
Self-ImprovementHappinessRelationshipsMoral ObligationNeighbors
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a speech about community service to emphasize the balance between personal growth and contributing to others' happiness.
More from Robert Louis Stevenson
All quotes →Like 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
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