A compilation of the best quotes and reflections of John Steinbeck, Nobel-winning writer.
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American-born writer, short story writer and war correspondent who won the Nobel Prize for Literature and whose famous works were brought to the big screen. Among his best writings are: ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, ‘East of Eden’ and ‘Of Mice and Men’.
If you are interested in knowing his way of thinking, you will like this selection of the best John Steinbeck phrases .
John Steinbeck’s most memorable phrases
With this selection of phrases and reflections by John Steinbeck, we will review his work and his way of seeing life.
- I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as great artists.
A great compliment to the people who teach us.
- I wonder how many people I have looked at all my life and never seen.
People are more than what they show on the outside.
- The free exploring mind of the individual human being is the most valuable thing in the world.
Imagination has no limits.
- I believe that a strong woman can be stronger than a man, particularly if she has love in her heart.
The strength comes from within us.
- Of all the animals of creation, man is the only one who drinks without being thirsty, eats without being hungry, and speaks without having anything to say.
A reference to the recklessness and arrogance of people.
- The art of rest is a part of the art of working.
If you don’t get a break, you won’t find the time to enjoy your achievements.
- Nobody wants advice, only corroboration.
Many people hate hearing something other than what they think.
- I wonder why progress is seen more than destruction.
Different progress comes from cruel experiments.
- A question is a trap, and an answer sets foot in it.
That’s why you should always go with the truth.
- By the thickness of the dust on the books of a public library, the culture of a people can be measured.
Every nation must cultivate the art of reading.
- Maybe everyone is afraid of everyone else in this damn world.
Fear is what drives us to act in the worst way possible.
- Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple, learn to care for them, and pretty soon you’ll have a dozen.
Ideas lead us to great results.
- I was born lost and I don’t like being found.
Being different can be a stigma in the eyes of others.
- You must not forget that a monster is just a variation, and that for a monster the norm is monstrous.
People cannot be good if they have grown up in an environment where evil is everyday.
- In human affairs where there is danger and care must be taken, a happy ending can be seriously compromised by haste.
Acting impulsively can lead us to miss out on valuable opportunities.
- Perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the one who helps others speak.
Everyone deserves the opportunity to tell their story.
- There is more beauty in the truth, even if it is a terrible truth.
A harsh reality is preferable to a beautiful and false lie.
- It doesn’t take a brain to be good. And sometimes I think it’s the opposite.
Do you think that goodness does not come from intelligence?
- It is much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if the light had never shone.
It’s harder to bounce back when you once had it all.
- What good would the heat of summer be without the cold of winter to give it sweetness?
When we see things as a balance, we appreciate every change.
- You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.
You can’t understand someone if you don’t show empathy.
- A city is very much like an animal. It has a nervous system, a head, shoulders and feet. It is separated from the other cities, in such a way that no two are identical. And it is also an emotional whole.
Cities are kept alive by the human warmth of their people.
- The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.
Be careful what you commit to.
- With a few exceptions, what men want is not money, but luxury, love and being admired.
It is not the money, but the benefits that it gives us.
- We only have one story.
No story is perfect, but all are beautiful because they are personal.
- The intention, good or bad, is not enough.
Intentions create great disasters when done wrong.
- Those who win the battles are the sheep, but those who win the wars are the free men.
The wars against ourselves and what can prevent us from a better future.
- You are no longer a man; you are a soldier. Your worries don’t matter, Lieutenant, and your life doesn’t matter much either.
The reality within the battalions.
- Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts… perhaps the fear of losing power.
An interesting reflection on the true enemy.
- How can we live without our lives? How will we know about ourselves without our past?
It is our past that builds our legacy in the world.
- Change comes like a small breeze that shakes the curtains at dawn, it comes like the discreet perfume of wild flowers, hidden in the grass.
No change is drastic, it looks that way because we refuse to move forward.
- All great and precious things are lonely.
Loneliness does not have to be bad, if we see it as something beneficial.
- My imagination will give me a passport to hell one day.
When you are different, you tend to be judged by others.
- People like you to be something, preferably what they are.
Something that stays within what they consider ‘normal’.
- In front of us there are a thousand different lives that we could live, but when it arrives, it will only be one.
Life is what we choose to live.
- Every war is a symptom of the failure of man as a thinking animal.
It’s just a sample of human cowardice.
- If you are in trouble, hurt or needy, go to the poor. They are the only ones who will help, the only ones.
The kindest people are those who don’t care about material things.
- Greatness lives in those who triumph over defeat and victory.
Defeat makes us wise and victories should make us humble.
- I will take revenge in the cruelest way you can imagine. I’ll forget it.
The best revenge is to enjoy our life.
- And the garish little fact that echoes throughout history: repression only serves to strengthen and weave together the repressed.
All locked up people find their courage to break free.
- I guess there are never enough books.
An absolute reality.
- The weight of knowledge is too great for one mind to absorb.
We may not be able to bear all the truths that are hidden.
- Don’t worry about losing. If it is correct, it happens. The main thing is not to rush. Nothing good escapes.
Things happen at their right time.
- Men don’t get knocked out, or I mean they can hold their own against big stuff. What kills them is erosion; they are pushed to failure. They slowly get scared.
A failure does not defeat us, but the fact of not having the opportunities we need to grow.
- It is in the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him.
The only way to achieve success is by trusting us.
- Socialism is just another form of religion and therefore delusional.
A critique of socialism.
- It is a common experience that a difficult problem at night is solved in the morning after the sleep committee has worked on it.
Sleep helps us renew ourselves.
- To be alive is to have scars.
We all go through bad times, but surviving them is what makes us great.
- It would be absurd if we didn’t understand both angels and demons since we invented them.
Is religion just a human invention?
- If they understand each other, they will be kind to each other.
Kindness comes from empathy.
- And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.
Being perfect is a burden that prevents us from being ourselves.
- In people’s souls the grapes of wrath are filling up and are gaining weight for the harvest.
Anger is a snowball effect, it grows from small to uncontrollable.
- Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.
A negative observation of this work.
- I will fight against any idea, religion or government that limits or destroys the individual.
No ideology should limit the potential of people.
- There is no better springboard than a bad conscience to jump into philanthropy.
Many who do good only try to hide their sins.
- You can know this: fear the moment when man stops suffering and dying for a concept, because this quality is man himself, and what differentiates him in the universe as a whole.
When we free ourselves from our ideologies, we become unstoppable.
- Fear infiltrated the houses where they were staying and made them sad, and it hung over the patrols and made them cruel.
Fear makes us paranoid and we tend to see the good as a threat.
- You see him a lot in war: a coward who becomes a hero and a brave man who goes down in flames.
Not all stories of brave people in war are real.
- All novels, all poetry, are built on the endless struggle between good and evil that takes place within us.
An interesting origin for literature.
- Money is very easy to make if you don’t want anything else.
An almost empty motivation.
- That is why I will fight for freedom of thought, so that you can follow the direction you want, without impositions or ties.
Nobody can put a bond to our mind.
- People do not make trips, it is the trips that make people.
It is by exploring new things that we discover a different inner value.
- Teaching can be the greatest of the arts, since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
Teaching should be the most appreciated for the development of people.
- One can find so many pains when the rain is falling.
When the environment is given, we can awaken all the sadness locked up.
- A very smart guy is hardly ever a good man.
There are people who show off their intelligence, but lack humanity.
- When a man says he doesn’t want to talk about something, it usually means that he can’t think of anything else.
What we refuse to tell is what haunts us daily in our minds.
- Human beings sometimes have more poison than snakes.
Human wickedness is also incalculable.
- Very often men stumble and fall because of excessive haste.
Many failures come from rushing to where we are not yet ready to be.
- It doesn’t take courage to do something when it’s the only thing you can do.
If it’s what you need to do, sooner or later it will happen.
- And of course people are only interested in themselves. If a story isn’t about the listener, they won’t listen.
People who want to be protagonists will not see another story that is not theirs.
- There is no sin and there is no virtue. There is only what people do.
Good and evil are carried in the actions we do.
- Beneath his shell of cowardice, man aspires to goodness and wants to be loved. If he takes the path of vice, it is because he believed he was taking a shortcut that would lead him to love.
We all want to be loved, but not everyone is looking for it on the right path.
- It is curious how distant a misfortune is when it does not concern us personally.
We will never be able to fully understand someone, until we live the same.
- In absolute solitude a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.
Solitude can be a writer’s best ally.
- A sad soul can kill faster than a germ.
Sadness that is not relieved ends up devouring every ounce of happiness that exists.
- Time is the only critic, without ambition.
It can help us grow or get stuck.
- A trip is like marriage. One is wrong if he thinks he has everything under control.
No one is in control of everything and relationships are not a cage.
- A truth that is not believed hurts us much more than a lie.
When they don’t believe your truth, nothing ever feels safe again.
- I guess a loving woman is indestructible.
Love makes us strong, never weak.
- When two people meet, each one is exchanged for the other, so you have two new people.
Change is inherent to improvement and this is the rule in a relationship.