Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
Under the strain of this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and solely occupied by one thought: the horror of my other self.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the struggle of self-identity and the psychological burden of one's darker side.
In this quote, Robert Louis Stevenson expresses the profound inner turmoil and self-reflection experienced by an individual grappling with their inner demons. It vividly portrays how the overwhelming weight of anxiety and the fear of oneself can lead to physical and mental exhaustion, emphasizing the complexities of human nature and the ongoing battle between our better selves and our darker inclinations.
Themes
Inner ConflictIdentityAnxietySelf-ReflectionDarkness
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about mental health, one might say, 'As Robert Louis Stevenson noted, we can be consumed by the horror of our own selves.'
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
But then, I suppose, when with the benefit of hindsight one begins to search one's past for such 'turning points', one is apt to start seeing them everywhere.
Kazuo IshiguroRead
Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.
Ambrose BierceRead
Archetypes, in spite of their conservative nature, are not static but in a continuous dramatic flux. Thus the self as a monad or continuous unit would be dead. But it lives inasmuch as it splits and unites again. There is no energy without opposites!
Carl JungRead
Five to six thousand people die every year waiting for organs, but nobody cares.
Jack KevorkianRead
Beyond doubt, there was a certain splendor in pain, which bore a deep affinity to the splendor that lies hidden within strength.
Yukio MishimaRead
When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. I fear the disease is incurable.
John SteinbeckRead