Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I lay me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be: Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses a deep appreciation for life and a peaceful acceptance of death, emphasizing the idea of returning to one's roots or home.
In this quote, Robert Louis Stevenson reflects on the inevitability of death and the comfort it brings when one feels they have truly lived. The imagery of a grave and the notion of home suggest a desire for belonging and peace in the face of mortality, highlighting the satisfaction of a life well-lived and the natural cycle of life and death.
Themes
LifeDeathHomePeaceBelonging
In practice
Example use cases
In a eulogy to celebrate the life of a loved one.
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.
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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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