Robert W. Service
19 quotes
Biography
Robert William Service was an English-born Canadian poet and writer, often called “The Bard of the Yukon" and "The Canadian Kipling". Born in Lancashire of Scottish descent, he was a bank clerk by trade, but spent long periods travelling in the west in the United States and Canada, often in poverty.
"It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones who win in the lifelong race."
"There's a race of men that don't fit in, A race that can't sit still;So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will.They range the field and rove the flood, And they climb the mountain's crest; Their's is the curse of the gypsy blood, And they don't know how to rest."
"I have no doubt at all the Devil grins,As seas of ink I spatter. Ye gods, forgive my "literary"sins --The other kind don't matter."
"No man can be a failure if he thinks he's a success; If he thinks he is a winner, then he is."
"Write verse, not poetry. The public wants verse. If you have a talent for poetry, then don't by any means mother it, but try your hand at verse."
"The only society I like is rough and tough, and the tougher the better. There's where you get down to bedrock and meet human people."
"I have an intense dislike for artificial society. In France, one could lead a free life - to do what one wanted to do without interference or criticism from one's neighbors."
"A half-dead thing in a stark dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold."
"Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wantingSo much as just finding the gold.It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder,It's the forests where silence has lease;It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,It's the stillness that fills me with peace."
"A promise made is a debt unpaid."
"A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars?-Then you've a hunch was the music meant...hunger and night and the stars."
"This is the Law of the Yukon that only the strong shall thrive That surely the weak shall perish and only the fit survive."
"It's the plugging away that will win you the day So don't be a piker old pard! Just draw on your grit it's so easy to quit- It's the keeping your chin up that's hard."
"Ah! the clock is always slow it is later than you think."
"The happy man is he who knows his limitations yet bows to no false gods."
"It's the plugging away that will win you the day So don't be a piker old pard! Just draw on your grit it's so easy to quit- It's the keeping your chin up that's hard."
"A promise made is a debt unpaid."
"Be sure your wisest words are those you do not say."
"It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out it's the grain of sand in your shoe."