Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
My idea of man's chief end was to enrich the world with things of beauty, and have a fairly good time myself while doing so.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of creating beauty in the world while also finding joy in the process.
In this quote, Robert Louis Stevenson articulates his belief that the primary purpose of life is to contribute positively to the world by creating beautiful things. He suggests that one should enjoy their endeavors and find personal happiness while enriching the lives of others through art and beauty.
In practice
This quote can be used at an art gallery opening to inspire artists and attendees.
Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Like a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow.
That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.
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.
The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions.
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.
Conflict and character are the heart of good fiction, and good mystery has both of those in spades.
The most original thing a writer can do is write like himself. It is also his most difficult task.
All fiction is a process of imagining: whatever you write, in whatever genre or medium, your task is to make things up convincingly and interestingly and new.
I don't think you should feel about a film. You should feel about a woman, not a movie. You can't kiss a movie.
I would never, ever use a novel to do thinly disguised political information dissemination. For me, all these experiences, they sat in me, and they got broken down into my body, and I sweated it out. It's not because I want to talk about 'issues.' For me, a novel is a way of seeing the world.
Thank you for the tragedy. I need it for my art.
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