Quotes by John Steinbeck

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

— John Steinbeck

Wisdom

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.

— John Steinbeck

Love

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.

— John Steinbeck

Education

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.

— John Steinbeck

Success

A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.

— John Steinbeck

Wisdom

You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.

— John Steinbeck

Wisdom

Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.

— John Steinbeck

Wisdom

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.

— John Steinbeck

Courage

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

— John Steinbeck

Education

If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones.

— John Steinbeck

Wisdom

One can find so many pains when the rain is falling.

— John Steinbeck

Wisdom

I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.

— John Steinbeck

Wisdom

In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.

— John Steinbeck

Wisdom

The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.

— John Steinbeck

Truth

Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.

— John Steinbeck

Wisdom

Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there's time, the Bastard Time.

— John Steinbeck

Wisdom

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.

— John Steinbeck

Wisdom

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world.

— John Steinbeck

Life

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

— John Steinbeck

Life

Time is the only critic without ambition.

— John Steinbeck

Wisdom

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.

— John Steinbeck

Life

Man, unlike anything organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.

— John Steinbeck

Success

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

— John Steinbeck

Wisdom

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.

— John Steinbeck

Wisdom