Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
This profusion of eccentricities, this dream in masonry and living rock is not a drop scene in a theatre, but a city in the world of reality.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that the unique and imaginative aspects of a city are real and not simply theatrical illusions.
In this quote, Robert Louis Stevenson highlights the distinctive and vivid characteristics of a city, suggesting that its creativity and eccentricities are a genuine part of the real world rather than mere pretensions or false representations. He encourages us to appreciate the authenticity and richness of urban life, recognizing it as a true manifestation of human artistry and expression.
In practice
In a speech about urban development, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of creativity in city planning.
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.
My role 14 years ago in Richard III - that was the first time I played a bad guy and learned a lot about it - they have all the fun!
Every device there is in language is there to be used, if you will. Poets have got to enjoy themselves sometimes, and the twistings and convolutions of words, the inventions and contrivances, are all part of the joy that is part of the painful, voluntary work.
If there's one theme in all my work, it's about authenticity and self-expression. It's the idea that some things are, in some real sense, really you - or express what you and others aren't.
What entrepreneurs and artists have in common is that they give the world something it didn't know it was missing.
Fashion comes and goes but style lasts forever
The instrument is not the camera but the photographer.
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