Top 100 Stephen Crane Quotes
#1. Men were better, or more timid. Secular and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else firm finance held in check the passions.
Stephen Crane
#2. Nothing is so much to be regretted as the universe.
Stephen Crane
#3. You get so frightfully hungry as soon as you learn that there are no more meals coming.
Stephen Crane
#4. Sometimes, the most profound of awakenings come wrapped in the quietest of moments.
Stephen Crane
#5. The wind had a voice as it came over the waves, and it was sadder than the end.
Stephen Crane
#7. When the prophet, a complacent fat man,
Arrived at the mountain-top
He cried: Woe to my knowledge!
I intended to see good white lands
And bad black lands
But the scene is grey.
Stephen Crane
#8. I cannot help vanishing and disappearing and dissolving. It is my foremost trait.
Stephen Crane
#9. The maddened four men followed frantically, for it is better to be in the presence of the awful than only within hearing. ("The Black Dog")
Stephen Crane
#10. Each man in this stretcher party had gained a reflected majesty. They were footmen to death, and
Stephen Crane
#11. And, furthermore, how could they kill him who was the chosen of gods and doomed to greatness?
Stephen Crane
#13. The youth perceived that the time had come. He was about to be measured. For a moment he felt in the face of his great trial like a babe, and the flesh over his heart seemed very thin.
Stephen Crane
#14. He had been out among the dragons, he said, and he assured himself that they were not so hideous as he had imagined them. Also,
Stephen Crane
#15. Such an assemblage of the spraddle-legged men of the middle class, whose hands were bent and shoulders stooped from delving and constructing, had never appeared to an Asbury Park summer crowd, and the latter was vaguely amused.
Stephen Crane
#16. It perhaps might be said
if any one dared
that the most worthless literature of the world has been that which has been written by the men of one nation concerning the men of another.
Stephen Crane
#17. He did not consider public opinion to be accurate at long range.
Stephen Crane
#18. It was surprising that Nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden process in the midst of so much devilment.
Stephen Crane
#19. The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer.
Stephen Crane
#20. When it came night, the white waves paced to and fro in the moonlight, and the wind brought the sound of the great sea's voice to the men on shore, and they felt that they could then be interpreters.
Stephen Crane
#21. He turned now with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks - an existence of soft and eternal peace.
Stephen Crane
#22. But as the girl timidly accosted him, he gave a convulsive movement and saved his
respectability by a vigorous side-step. He did not risk it to save a soul. For how was he to
know that there was a soul before him that needed saving?
Stephen Crane
#23. Others may do as they please, but as for me,' he concluded ferociously, 'I shall never disclose to anybody that an acrobat, a trained bear of the magazines, a juggler of comic paragraphs, is not a priceless pearl of art and philosophy.
Stephen Crane
#24. IV
Yes, I have a thousand tongues,
And nine and nighty-nine lie.
Though I strive to use the one,
It will make no melody at my will,
But is dead in my mouth.
Stephen Crane
#25. This poor gambler isn't even a noun. He is kind of an adverb.
Stephen Crane
#26. But these matters did not annoy him. It is almost certain that if the boat capsized he would have tumbled comfortably out upon the ocean as if he felt sure that it was a great soft mattress.
Stephen Crane
#27. I like the people. But, considered generally, they are a collection of ingenious blockheads.
Stephen Crane
#29. There were many who went in huddled procession,
They knew not wither,
But, at any rate, success or calamity
Would attend all in equality.
There was one who sought a new road,
He went into direful thickets,
And ultimately he died thus, alone;
But they said he had courage.
Stephen Crane
#30. Nevertheless, he had, on a certain star-lit evening, said wonderingly and quite reverently: Deh moon looks like hell, don't it?
Stephen Crane
#32. The wayfarer, Perceiving the pathway to truth, Was struck with astonishment. It was thickly grown with weeds. "Ha," he said, "I see that none has passed here In a long time." Later he saw that each weed Was a singular knife. "Well," he mumbled at last, "Doubtless there are other roads.
Stephen Crane
#33. But he instantly saw that it would be impossible for him to escape from the regiment. It inclosed him. And there were iron laws of tradition and law on four sides. He was in a moving box
Stephen Crane
#34. Mother, whose heart hung humble as a button the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Stephen Crane
#35. The man had arrived at that stage of drunkenness where affection is felt for the universe.
Stephen Crane
#36. They were going to look at war, the red
animal
war, the blood-swollen god.
Stephen Crane
#37. These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of the slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.
Stephen Crane
#38. The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this time buried in that profound dejection and indifference which comes, temporarily at least, to
even the bravest and most enduring when, willy nilly, the firm fails, the army loses, the ship goes down.
Stephen Crane
#39. When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples.
Stephen Crane
#40. A man said to the universe: 'Sir, I exist!' 'However,' replied the universe. 'The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.
Stephen Crane
#41. Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,Raged at his breast, gulped and died,Do not weep.War is kind.
Stephen Crane
#42. What a woman says doesn't amount to shucks. It's the way she says it - that's what counts.
Stephen Crane
#43. The voice of God whispers in the heart
So softly
That the soul pauses,
Making no noise,
And strives for these melodies,
Distant, sighing, like faintest breath,
And all the being is still to hear.
Stephen Crane
#44. That is the most odiously aristocratic belief,
Stephen Crane
#45. His face had been twisted into an expression of every agony he had imagined for his friend.
Stephen Crane
#47. And it was as if fate had betrayed the soldier. In death it exposed to his enemies that poverty which in life he had perhaps concealed from his friends.
Stephen Crane
#48. Perhaps an individual must consider his own death to be the final phenomenon of nature.
Stephen Crane
#49. Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden rain clouds.
Stephen Crane
#50. But he said, in substance, to himself that if the earth and moon were about to clash, many persons would doubtless plan to get upon the roofs to witness the collision.
Stephen Crane
#51. Tell her this
And more,
That the king of the seas
Weeps too, old, helpless man.
The bustling fates
Heap his hands with corpses
Until he stands like a child
With surplus of toys.
Stephen Crane
#52. He saw that it was an ironical thing for him to be running thus toward that which he had been at such pains to avoid.
Stephen Crane
#53. Two or three angels Came near to the earth. They saw a fat church. Little black streams of people Came and went in continually. And the angels were puzzled To know why the people went thus, And why they stayed so long within.
Stephen Crane
#54. Many a man ought to have a bath-tub larger than the boat which here rode upon the sea.
Stephen Crane
#55. If there is a witness to my little life,To my tiny throes and struggles,He sees a fool;And it is not fine for gods to menace fools.
Stephen Crane
#56. When the suicide arrived at the sky, the people there asked him: "Why?" He replied: "Because no one admired me.
Stephen Crane
#58. It is perhaps, plausible that a man in this situation, impressed with the unconcern of the universe, should see the innumerable flaws of his life and have them taste wickedly in his mind and wish for another chance.
Stephen Crane
#59. He was submitting, submitting because of his fathers, bending his mind in a most perfect slavery to this conflagration.
Stephen Crane
#60. There was a man with tongue of wood who essayed to sing,
and in truth it was lamentable;
but there was one who heard the clip-clapper of this tongue of wood,
and knew what the man wished to sing,
and with that the singer was content.
Stephen Crane
#61. No man can observe you as I have observed you and not know that it was a matter of conscience with you, but I am afraid, my friend, that it is one of the blunders of virtue." The
Stephen Crane
#62. He had been a mere man railing at a condition, but now he was out of it and could see that it had been very proper and just. It had been necessary for him to swallow swords that he might have a better throat for grapes.
Stephen Crane
#63. He vaguely desired to walk around and around the body and stare; the impulse of the living to try to read in dead eyes the answer to the Question.
Stephen Crane
#64. XXVI
There was set before me a mighty hill,
And long days I climbed
Through regions of snow.
When I had before me the summit-view,
It seemed my labor
Had been to see gardens
Lying at impossible distances.
Stephen Crane
#65. The word is clear only to the kind who on peak or plain, from dark northern ice-fields to the hot wet jungles, through all wine and want, through lies and unfamiliar truth, dark or light, are governed by the unknown gods, and though each man knows the law, no man may give tongue to it.
Stephen Crane
#66. A man with a full stomach and the respect of his fellows had no business to scold about anything that he might think to be wrong in the ways of the universe, or even with the ways of society. Let the unfortunates rail; the others may play marbles.
Stephen Crane
#67. If a man loves a woman better than the whole universe, how much does he love the whole universe?
Stephen Crane
#68. The lieutenant, returning from a tour after a bandage, produced from a hidden receptacle of his mind new and portentous oaths suited to the emergency. Strings of expletives he swung lashlike over the backs of his men, and it was evident that his previous efforts had in nowise impaired his resources.
Stephen Crane
#69. As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors.
Stephen Crane
#70. It appeared that the swift wings of their desires would have shattered against the iron gates of the impossible.
Stephen Crane
#71. A serious prophet upon predicting a flood should be the first man to climb a tree. This would demonstrate that he was indeed a seer.
Stephen Crane
#72. One viewed the existence of man then as a marvel, and conceded a glamour of wonder to these lice which were caused to cling to a whirling, fire-smote, ice-locked, disease-stricken, space-lost bulb.
Stephen Crane
#73. This landscape gave him assurance. A fair field holding life. It was the religion of peace. It would die if its timid eyes were compelled to see blood. He conceived Nature to be a woman with a deep aversion to tragedy.
Stephen Crane
#74. It is useless to expect appreciation of his profound and fine senses from such men as the lieutenant.
Stephen Crane
#75. In the swirling rain that came at dusk the broad avenue glistened with that deep bluish tint which is so widely condemned when it is put into pictures.
Stephen Crane
#76. Think as I think," said a man, "or you are abominably wicked; you are a toad." And after I thought of it, I said, "I will, then, be a toad.
Stephen Crane
#77. A learned man came to me once. He said, "I know the way,
come." And I was overjoyed at this. Together we hastened. Soon, too soon, were we Where my eyes were useless, And I knew not the ways of my feet. I clung to the hand of my friend; But at last he cried, "I am lost.
Stephen Crane
#78. Once upon a time there was a beautiful Indian maiden, of course.
Stephen Crane
#79. So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and wrath his soul changed.
Stephen Crane
#81. There is nothing-
No life,
No joy,
No pain-
There is nothing save opinion,
And opinion be damned.
Stephen Crane
#82. She performed nearly all the house-work in exchange for the privilege of existence. Every
Stephen Crane
#83. Truth ... Is a breath, a wind, A shadow, a phantom; Long have I pursued it, But never have I touched The hem of its garment.
Stephen Crane
#84. She thinks my name is Freddie, you know, but of course it ain't. I
always tell these people some name like that, because if they got onto
your right name they might use it sometime. Understand?
Stephen Crane
#85. All men are. I declare, I think you to be the most incomprehensible creatures.
Stephen Crane
#86. The conceit of man was explained by this storm to be the very engine of life. One
Stephen Crane
#87. A MAN FEARED
A man feared that he might find an assassin;
Another that he might find a victim.
One was more wise than the other.
Stephen Crane
#88. A mysterious fraternity born out of smoke and danger of death.
Stephen Crane
#90. At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage.
Stephen Crane
#91. The moon had been lighted and was hung in a treetop.
Stephen Crane
#92. If I am going to be drowned - if I am going to be drowned - if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?
Stephen Crane
#93. If I should cast off this tattered coat, And go free into the mighty sky; If I should find nothing there But a vast blue, Echoless, ignorant
What then?
Stephen Crane
#94. XXIV
I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,
"You can never-"
"You lie" he cried
And ran on.
Stephen Crane
#95. Camp fires, like red, peculiar blossoms, dotted the night.
Stephen Crane
#97. Through his suffering, he peers into the core of things and sees that the judgment of man is thistle-down in the wind.
Stephen Crane
#99. Tradition, thou art for suckling children, Thou art the enlivening milk for babes, But no meat for men is in thee.
Stephen Crane
#100. Unwind my riddle.Cruel as hawks the hours fly;Wounded men seldom come home to die;The hard waves see an arm flung high;Scorn hits strong because of a lie;Yet there exists a mystic tie.Unwind my riddle.
Stephen Crane
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
