Stevenson wrote it in The Amateur Emigrant, his account of the 1879 emigrant crossing to New York — chapter 4, “Steerage Types ↗” — where the sentence runs “an aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding.” Napoleon Hill reprinted the line as a display epigraph in The Law of Success (1928) and credited Stevenson underneath it ↗; the trimmed wording that circulates today is his setting, and the credit fell off along the way.
“An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding” Robert Louis Stevenson, The Amateur Emigrant, ch. 4 "Steerage Types" (written 1879–80; first published in full 1895). Commonly trimmed to "worth finding" and sometimes mis-credited to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis; Napoleon Hill reprinted it — crediting Stevenson — in The Law of Success (1928). Via Quotle.info
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Use the credit shown above instead.
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Evoking the world of Robert Louis Stevenson — Scottish novelist, essayist, travel writer and poet. Theme: "An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
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Provenance
The source
Work
The Amateur Emigrant
Location
Part I, “From the Clyde to Sandy Hook” — ch. 4, “Steerage Types”
Written / published
Written 1879–80; first published in full in 1895
Popularised by
Napoleon Hill, The Law of Success (1928) — a display epigraph, credited to Stevenson
You cannot run away from a weakness; you must some time fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand? … A sea-voyage will not give a man the nerve to put aside cheap pleasure; emigration has to be done before we climb the vessel; an aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding; and it is not to be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself.
The Amateur Emigrant, ch. 4 — “Steerage Types”
Note the word the popular version loses: Stevenson wrote “worth the finding.” The shorter form now in circulation is the one Hill set in 1928.
The primary text. The sentence appears verbatim in ch. 4, “Steerage Types,” of The Amateur Emigrant: “emigration has to be done before we climb the vessel; an aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding; and it is not to be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself.” Confirmed in Wikisource’s transcription of the 1911 Charles Scribner’s Sons Biographical Edition ↗ (the book itself was first published in full in 1895).
Where Hill comes in. The scan of the 1928 Ralston University Press printing of The Law of Success shows the line set as a display page closing the Introductory Lesson, in capitals, signed “—Robert Louis Stevenson” — and with the dropped before “finding.” Internet Archive full text ↗.
Publication history. Stevenson wrote the book in 1879–80 after sailing for California; it was not published in full until 1895, one year after his death, per Wikipedia’s article on the work ↗. The quotation-research site WIST ↗ cites it the same way: The Amateur Emigrant, ch. 4 “Steerage Types” (1895).
✓Public domain
The Amateur Emigrant was written in 1879–80 and first published in full in 1895; Wikisource notes its text was published before 1 January 1931 and is public domain. The Project Gutenberg text used here is the Swanston Edition, vol. 2 (1911), also pre-1931 — and Hill’s reprinting carries a 1928 copyright notice, likewise pre-1931.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
How the credit went wrong
The words and the trim do trace to one page of one 1928 self-help book — but that page credits Stevenson, correctly and in print. The wrong name arrived later, downstream, once harvesters had lifted the display page without its credit line.
✕
The false creditJacqueline Kennedy Onassis Mis-credited
Hill set the sentence as a display page closing the Introductory Lesson of The Law of Success (1928), in capitals, and signed it “—Robert Louis Stevenson” directly underneath. The scan of that printing ↗ shows the credit line plainly. Hill never claimed it, and nobody credits him as its author; harvesters took the words off his page and left the attribution behind.
✕
The wording“worth finding” — Stevenson wrote “worth the finding” Trimmed
The 1928 epigraph drops the article, and that shorter form is the one in circulation. Stevenson’s own text keeps it: “an aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding” — see the chapter on Wikisource ↗.
It reads like a motivational poster, which is roughly what Hill turned it into. In its own setting it is something sharper: hard-eyed reporting from the steerage deck. Stevenson had sailed from the Clyde in 1879 among emigrants he was actually living beside, and he came away unconvinced by the promise the voyage was selling. Drink, idleness and incompetency, he wrote, were the three great causes of emigration — and a boat fixes none of them.
So the sentence is an argument, not an aspiration. “Emigration has to be done before we climb the vessel” — change your country and you change only the scenery; the aim has to be found first, and it is found inward. That is why the word “fortune” bites: these were people crossing an ocean to look for money, and Stevenson is telling them the only fortune that travels is the one they would have to bring.
“You cannot run away from a weakness.”
Why the book took until 1895 to appear
Stevenson wrote The Amateur Emigrant in 1879–80, but it was not published in full until 1895, one year after his death. Part I was ready for the press and then withdrawn in 1880 ↗.
His circle disliked it: his close association with working-class passengers offended middle-class sensibilities, certain passages struck the publisher as too graphic, and his father Thomas Stevenson bought all the copies of the already printed travelogue, judging it beneath his son’s talent — per Wikipedia’s account ↗. The line that later became inspirational boilerplate was, in its own moment, part of a book his family tried to bury.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1850–1894 · Scottish novelist, essayist, travel writer and poet
Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, essayist, travel writer and poet, best known for Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped and A Child’s Garden of Verses. In August 1879 he sailed for California to reunite with Fanny Osbourne, travelling second class on the steamship Devonia and then overland by train — a journey that nearly broke his health and produced The Amateur Emigrant. He died in 1894, and the book appeared in full the following year.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source
Robert Louis Stevenson, “Steerage Types,” ch. 4 of The Amateur Emigrant, pt. 1, “From the Clyde to Sandy Hook” (written 1879–80; first published in full 1895); text as printed in The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Swanston Edition, vol. 2 (London: Chatto and Windus, 1911). Reprinted as a display epigraph, with the article the dropped, in Napoleon Hill, The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons (Meriden, CT: Ralston University Press, 1928), Introductory Lesson.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding’?” Last verified 30 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/an-aim-in-life-is-the-only-fortune-worth-finding/