Top 697 Quotes & Sayings by John Steinbeck - Page 2

I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.

All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal.

It is a time of quiet joy, the sunny morning. When the glittery dew is on the mallow weeds, each leaf holds a jewel which is beautiful if not valuable. This is no time for hurry or for bustle. Thoughts are slow and deep and golden in the morning.

I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found.

An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion.

The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.

I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.

It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him.

My imagination will get me a passport to hell one day.

A man on a horse is spiritually, as well as physically, bigger then a man on foot.

American married life is the doormat to the whorehouse.

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do...Try to be better than yourself.

This I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.

A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.

It's almost impossible to read a fine thing without wanting to do a fine thing.

All great and precious things are lonely.

When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influences and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror.

You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.

There's a responsibility in being a person. It's more than just taking up space where air would be.

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.

People are felt rather than seen after the first few moments.

Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.

It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.

Out of all this struggle a good thing is going to grow. That makes it worthwhile.

With all our horrors and faults, somewhere in us there is a shining.

A man without words is a man without thought.

The nicest thing in the world you can do for anybody is let them help you.

You know most people live ninety per cent in the past, seven per cent in the present, and that only leaves them three per cent for the future.

I know now why confusion in government is not only tolerated but encouraged. I have learned. A confused people can make no clear demands.

A boy becomes a man when a man is needed

People like you to be something, preferably what they are.

Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic? ...Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.

It’s a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it.

And finally, in our time a beard is the one thing that a woman cannot do better than a man, or if she can her success is assured only in a circus.

I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?

And, of course, people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen.

Socialism is just another form of religion, and thus delusional.

I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it.

I believe that love cannot be bought except with love.

Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.

I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger.

Perhaps the less we have, the more we are required to brag.

The final weapon is the brain, all else is supplemental.

Father and son are natural enemies and each is happier and more secure in keeping it that way.

In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms

If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And here I make a rule—a great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last.

Maybe ever'body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.

Ah, the prayers of the millions, how they must fight and destroy each other on their way to the throne of God.

Nearly everyone has his box of secret pain.

That man who is more then his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis.

If we could learn even a little to like ourselves, maybe our cruelties and angers might melt away.

To finish is sadness to a writer — a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done.

I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt- and there is the story of mankind.

Being at ease with himself put him at ease with the world.

I suppose our capacity for self-delusion is boundless.

All men are moral. Only their neighbors are not.

Your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person-a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.

Some men are friends with the whole world in their hearts, and there are others that hate themselves and spread their hatred around like butter on hot bread.

I find out of long experience that I admire all nations and hate all governments

How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him--he has known a fear beyond every other.