John Steinbeck Quotes

Don't worry about losing. If it is right, it happens - The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.

The free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.

And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.

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

I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructible.

When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you've got two new people.

There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.

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

If you understand each other you will be kind to each other.

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.

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 is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.

Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.

There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension.

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.

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.

And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.

The Mojave is a big desert and a frightening one. It’s as though nature tested a man for endurance and constancy to prove whether he was good enough to get to California.

So in our pride we ordered for breakfast an omelet, toast and coffee and what has just arrived is a tomato salad with onions, a dish of pickles, a big slice of watermelon and two bottles of cream soda.

Only mediocrity escapes criticism.

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

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

A large drop of sun lingered on the horizon and then dripped over and was gone, and the sky was brilliant over the spot where it had gone, and a torn cloud, like a bloody rag, hung over the spot of its going. And dusk crept over the sky from the eastern horizon, and darkness crept over the land from the east.

The last clear definite function of man — muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need — this is man.

In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.

I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.

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

Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping.

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

A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.

We only have one story. All novels, all poetry are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil.

This is beyond understanding." said the king. "You are the wisest man alive. You know what is preparing. Why do you not make a plan to save yourself?" And Merlin said quietly, "Because I am wise. In the combat between wisdom and feeling, wisdom never wins.

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

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike.

This I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.

The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it.

To be alive at all is to have scars.

A man without words is a man without thought.

A stilted heron labored up into the air and pounded down the river.

No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe

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

There are two kinds of people in the world, observers and non-observers.

There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days, and as an opal changes its colors and its fire to match the nature of a day, so do I.

All great and precious things are lonely.