John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer, short story writer and war correspondent who won the Nobel Prize in 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 quotes by John Steinbeck
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. The free exploring mind of the individual human being is the most valuable thing in the world.
Imagination has no limits.
4. I believe that a strong woman can be stronger than a man, particularly if she has love in her heart.
Strength comes from within us.
5. Of all the animals in creation, man is the only one that drinks without being thirsty, eats without being hungry and speaks without having anything to say.
A reference to the recklessness and arrogance of people.
6. 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.
7. Nobody wants advice, only corroboration.
Many people hate hearing something different than what they think.
8. I wonder why progress is seen more than destruction.
Different progress comes from cruel experiments.
9. A question is a trap, and an answer puts the foot in it.
That’s why you should always go with the truth.
10. The culture of a people can be measured by the thickness of the dust on the books in a public library.
Every nation must cultivate the art of reading.
11. Maybe everyone is afraid of everyone else in this damned world.
Fear is what leads us to act in the worst possible way.
22. A city is a lot 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.
23. The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.
Be careful what you commit to.
24. With a few exceptions, what men want is not money, but luxury, love, and being admired.
It is not the money, but the benefits it gives us.
25. We only have one story.
No story is perfect, but they are all beautiful because they are personal.
26. Intention, good or bad, is not enough.
Intentions create great disasters when they are done wrong.
27. Those who win the battles are the sheep, but those who win the wars are the free men.
Wars against ourselves and what can prevent us from a better future.
28. 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.
29. Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts… perhaps the fear of losing power.
An interesting reflection on the true enemy.
30. 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.
31. Change comes like a small breeze that stirs 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.
32. All great and precious things are lonely.
Loneliness does not have to be bad, if we see it as something beneficial.
33. My imagination will give me a passport to hell one day.
When you are different, you tend to be judged by others.
34. People like you when you are something, preferably what they are.
Something that stays within what they consider ‘normal’.
35. Before us there are a thousand different lives that we could live, but when it comes, it will only be one.
Life is what we choose to live.
36. Every war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.
It’s just an example of human cowardice.
37. 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.
38. Greatness lives in those who triumph over defeat and victory.
Defeat makes us wise and victories should make us humble.
39. I will take revenge in the cruelest way you can imagine. I’ll forget it.
The best revenge is to enjoy our life.
40. And the small strident fact that echoes throughout history: repression only serves to strengthen and knit together the repressed.
All the locked up people find their courage to break free.
41. I guess there are never enough books.
An absolute reality.
42. 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.
43. Don’t worry about losing. If it’s right, it happens. The main thing is not to rush. Nothing good escapes.
Things happen at their right time.
44. Men don’t get knocked out, or I mean they can defend themselves from important things. What kills them is erosion; They are pushed to failure. They slowly get scared.
Failure does not defeat us, but not having the opportunities we need to grow.
45. It is in man’s nature to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him.
The only way to achieve success is by trusting in ourselves.
46. ​​Socialism is just another form of religion and therefore delusional.
A criticism of socialism.
47. 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.
48. To be alive is to have scars.
We all go through bad times, but surviving them is what makes us great.
49. It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and demons since we invented them.
Is religion just a human invention?
50. If you understand each other, you will be kind to each other.
Kindness comes from empathy.
51. 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.
52. In the souls of people the grapes of wrath are filling and gaining weight for the harvest.
Anger is a snowball effect, it grows from a little until it is uncontrollable.
53. Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.
A negative observation of this work.
54. I will fight against any idea, religion or government that limits or destroys the individual.
No ideology should limit people’s potential.
55. There is no better springboard than a bad conscience to jump into philanthropy.
Many who do good only try to hide their sins.
56. 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.
57. Fear infiltrated the houses where they were staying and made them sad, and it hovered over the patrols and made them cruel.
Fear makes us paranoid and we tend to see the good as a threat.
58. You see it a lot in war: a coward who becomes a hero and a brave man who crashes in flames.
Not all stories of brave men in wars are real.
59. All novels, all poetry, are built on the endless struggle between good and evil that takes place within us.
An interesting origin for literature.
60. Money is very easy to make if you don’t want anything else.
An almost empty motivation.
61. That is why I will fight for freedom of thought, so that you can follow the direction you want, without impositions or ties.
No one can put a bondage on our mind.
62. People don’t make trips, it’s trips that make people.
It is by exploring new things that we discover a different inner value.
63. Teaching may be the greatest of arts, since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
Teaching should be the most appreciated for the development of people.
64. One can find so many pains when the rain is falling.
When the environment is right, we can awaken all the sadness locked up.
65. A very smart guy is almost never a good man.
There are people who boast of their intelligence, but lack humanity.
66. When a man says he doesn’t want to talk about something, it usually means that he can’t think about anything else.
What we refuse to tell is what haunts our minds every day.
67. Human beings are sometimes more poisonous than snakes.
Human evil is also incalculable.
68. Very often men stumble and fall because of excessive haste.
Many failures come from rushing to get to where we are not yet prepared to be.
69. 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.
70. And of course, people are only interested in themselves. If a story is not about the listener, he will not listen.
People who want to be protagonists will not see any other story that is not theirs.
71. 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.
72. Under 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 seeks it the right way.
73. 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 experience the same thing.
74. In absolute solitude a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.
Solitude can be a writer’s best ally.
75. A sad soul can kill faster than a germ.
Sadness that is not alleviated ends up devouring every ounce of happiness that exists.
76. Time is the only critic, without ambition.
It can help us grow or stay stuck.
77. 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.
78. A truth that is not believed hurts us much more than a lie.
When they don’t believe your truth, nothing feels safe again.
79. I guess a loving woman is indestructible.
Love makes us strong, never weak.
80. When two people meet, each one is changed by the other, so you have two new people.
Change is inherent to improvement and this is the rule in a relationship.
