💬 Quotes

"The white folks were not really people; they were a natural force, like aVictorian storm or a flash flood."

"I had the feeling that I was crossing a vast ocean, alone, and that the shores I was leaving behind were hostile and strange."

"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."

"We are none of us infallible, not even the youngest."

"There is nothing so galling to a creature come of decent people as to accept public alms, or the equivalent of public alms, of a sudden."

"Travel is hard enough by the best helps; but aside with a donkey, it is the opinion of those who are experienced that it is the very root of toil."

"Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and winds and perfumes."

"A certain drabness of sentiment hangs over places where people have lived and died, an oppressive sense of the past."

"Those who read my little books know well that the partiality of my inspiration (or perhaps only my impulse) has been directed towards the sea, and the sea-life."

"A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line."

"The way of righteousness, my masters, is to toil all day and to sleep all night."

"The ethical value of a life is in its impulses, and not in the physical outcome of its activities."

"The fascination of the London streets is as strong as the fascination of the sea."

"Fiction is nearer to truth than history. It allows you to grasp the very spirit of an epoch."

"Government is an institution which prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself."

"Group feeling is natural in human beings. It leads to mutual affection and favorable treatment, and to the support of one another against those who are not of the group."

"When civilization [urbanization] increases, the available labor again increases. In luxury, again, each single article is worked at several times, and skilled labor is in high demand."

"The past resembles the future as water resembles water."

"Dynasties have a natural life span like individuals."

"Injustice ruins civilization. The ruin of civilization entails the downfall of the dynasty."