Best 33 quotes of Robert W. Service on MyQuotes

Ah! the clock is always slow; it is later than you think.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs With a brilliant, fitful pace, It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones Who win in the lifelong race. And each forgets that his youth has fled, Forgets that his prime is past, Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead, In the glare of the truth at last.

A promise made is a debt unpaid.

Avoid extremes: be moderate In saving and in spending; An equable and easy gait Will win an easy ending.

Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe.

Even goats may have starlight in their eyes.

His life, though none too long, Was never dull: Of woman, wine and song Bill had his full.

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.

I have no doubts that the Devil grins, As seas of ink I spatter. Ye gods, forgive my “literary” sins – The other kind don’t matter.

I like to think that when I fall, A rain-drop in Death's shoreless sea, This shelf of books along the wall, Beside my bed, will mourn for me.

I remember little of the Yukon or what I wrote there.

It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out; it's the grain of sand in your shoe.

It's easy to fight when everything's right And you're mad with the thrill and the glory; It's easy to cheer when victory's near, And wallow in fields that are gory. It's a different song when everything's wrong, When you're feeling infernally mortal; When it's ten against one, and hope there is none, Buck up, little soldier, and chortle!

No man can be a failure if he thinks he's a success; If he thinks he is a winner, then he is.

Old Year! upon the Stage of Time You stand to bow your last adieu; A moment, and the prompter's chime Will ring the curtain down on you.

Our breath is brief, and being so Let's make our heaven here below, And lavish kindness as we go.

Some praise the Lord for Light, The living spark; I thank God for the Night The healing dark.

The lonely sunsets flare forlorn Down valleys dreadly desolate; The lonely mountains soar in scorn As still as death, as stern as fate.

Then you've a hunch what the music meant . . . hunger and night and the stars.

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.

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.

The trails of the world be countless, and most of the trails be tried; You tread on the heels of the many, till you come where the ways divide;And one lies safe in the sunlight, and the other is dreary and wan,But you look aslant at the Lone Trail, and the Lone Trail lures you on.

This is the law of the Yukon, that only the strong shall thrive; that surely the weak shall perish, and only the fit survive.

When children's children shall talk of War as a madness that may not be; When we thank our God for our grief today, and blazon from sea to sea In the name of the Dead the banner of Peace ... that will be Victory.

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.

A half-dead thing in a stark dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold.

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.

The Quitter When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child, And Death looks you bang in the eye, And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle To cock your revolver and . . . die. But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can," And self-dissolution is barred. In hunger and woe, oh, it's easy to blow... It's the hell-served-for-breakfast that's hard. "You're sick of the game!" Well, now, that's a shame. You're young and you're brave and you're bright. "You've had a raw deal!" I know — but don't squeal, Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight. 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. It's easy to cry that you're beaten — and die; It's easy to crawfish and crawl; But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight — Why, that's the best game of them all! And though you come out of each gruelling bout, All broken and beaten and scarred, Just have one more try — it's dead easy to die, It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.

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.

Of Books and Scribes there are no end: This Plague--and who can doubt it? Dismays me so, I've sadly penned Another book about it.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee.

There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting; It’s luring me on as of old; Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting So 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.

Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting So 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.