WIST Quotations

Stevenson, Robert Louis -- Essay (1888-09), “A Letter to a Young Gentleman Who Proposes to Embrace the Career of Art,” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 3

Dave — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 18:06:41 +0000

To give the public what they do not want, and yet expect to be supported: we have there a strange pretension, and yet not uncommon, above all with painters. The first duty in this world is for a man to pay his way; when that is quite accomplished, he may plunge into what eccentricity he likes; but emphatically not till then.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1888-09), “A Letter to a Young Gentleman Who Proposes to Embrace the Career of Art,” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 3
(Source)

Collected in Across the Plains, ch. 10 (1892).

Watterson, Bill -- Calvin and Hobbes (1990-10-14)

Dave — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 22:29:56 +0000

HOBBES: Van Gogh would’ve sold more than one painting if he’d put tigers in them.

Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin and Hobbes (1990-10-14)
(Source)

Roosevelt, Theodore -- Speech (1910-04-23), “Citizenship in a Republic [The Man in the Arena],” Sorbonne, Paris

Dave — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:46:23 +0000

It is a bad thing for a nation to raise and to admire a false standard of success; and there can be no falser standard than that set by the deification of material well-being in and for itself.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Speech (1910-04-23), “Citizenship in a Republic [The Man in the Arena],” Sorbonne, Paris
(Source)

Steinbeck, John -- Travels With Charley: In Search of America, Part 2 (1962)

Dave — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:02:12 +0000

Even while I protest the assembly-line production of our food, our songs, our language, and eventually our souls, I know that it was a rare home that baked good bread in the old days. Mother’s cooking was with rare exceptions poor, that good unpasteurized milk touched only by flies and bits of manure crawled with bacteria, the healthy old-time life was riddled with aches, sudden death from unknown causes, and that sweet local speech I mourn was the child of illiteracy and ignorance. It is the nature of a man as he grows older, a small bridge in time, to protest against change, particularly change for the better.

John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
Travels With Charley: In Search of America, Part 2 (1962)
(Source)