Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Curiosity can be both a challenge and a virtue, and mastering it requires more than just suppressing it.
In this quote, Robert Louis Stevenson suggests that while it may be easy to suppress or ignore our natural curiosity, true mastery comes from embracing and conquering it. This implies that understanding and channeling one's curiosity can lead to personal growth and deeper insights, rather than merely stifling it for convenience or comfort.
Themes
CuriosityUnderstandingMasteryGrowthKnowledge
In practice
Example use cases
During a graduation speech to inspire students to explore their interests.
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
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Kindness has converted more sinners than either zeal, eloquence, or learning; and these three last have never converted any.
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When you eventually see through the veils to how things really are, you will keep saying again and again, this is certainly not like we thought it was.
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Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Accepting does not necessarily mean liking, enjoying, condoning. I can accept what is-and be determined to evolve from there. It is not acceptance but denial that leaves me stuck.
Nathaniel BrandenRead
We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.
Tom RobbinsRead
We know there are certain chemicals that are designed to give us a rush of pleasure. But, one of the most amazing things about being human is our capacity to override that pleasure. To either say, 'I don't need that pleasure right now. I'm going to ignore the craving.' Or to find something else that we find a deeper sense of reward from.
Charles DuhiggRead