Discover a wealth of wisdom and insight from Joseph Conrad through their most impactful and thought-provoking quotes and sayings. Expand your perspective with their inspiring words and share these beautiful Joseph Conrad quote pictures with your friends and followers on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blog - all free of charge. We've compiled the top 654 Joseph Conrad quotes for you to explore and share with others.

To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot. By Joseph Conrad Parrot Teacher Languages Time World

We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the August light of abiding memories. By Joseph Conrad August Memories Looked Venerable Stream

The desire to make the horse happy and the cabman happy, had reached the point of a bizarre longing to take them to bed with him. And that, he knew, was impossible. For Stevie was not mad. It was, as it were, a symbolic longing; and at the same time it was very distinct, because springing from experience, the mother of wisdom. Thus when as a child he cowered in a dark corner scared, wretched, sore, and miserable with the black, black misery of the soul, his sister Winnie used to come along, and carry him off to bed with her, as into a heaven of consoling peace. Stevie, though apt to forget mere facts, such as his name and address for instance, had a faithful memory of sensations. To be taken into a bed of compassion was the supreme remedy, with the only one disadvantage of being difficult of application on a large scale. And looking at the cabman, Stevie perceived this clearly, because he was reasonable. By Joseph Conrad Happy Stevie Bed Desire Make

I take it, no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil; the fool is too much of a fool, or the devil too much of a devil - I don't know which. Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing place - and whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won't pretend to say. But most of us are neither one nor the other. The earth for us is a place to live in, where we must put up with sights, with sounds, with smells, too, by Jove! - breathe dead hippo, so to speak, and not be contaminated. By Joseph Conrad Devil Fool Made Bargain Soul

own. That was the reflection that made you creepy all over. It was impossible - it was not good for one either - trying to imagine. He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land - I mean literally. You can't understand. How could you? - with solid pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbors ready to cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums - how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man's untrammeled feet may take him into by the way of solitude - utter solitude without a policeman - by the way of silence, utter silence, By Joseph Conrad Policeman Utter Silence Imagine Feet

She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul. By Joseph Conrad Draped Cloths Treading Proudly Ornaments

We wander in our thousands over theface of the earth, the illustrious and the obscure, earning beyond theseas our fame, our money, or only a crust of bread; but it seems to methat for each of us going home must be like going to render an account.We return to face our superiors, our kindred, our friendsthose whom weobey, and those whom we love; but even they who have neither, the mostfree, lonely, irresponsible and bereft of ties,even those for whomhome holds no dear face, no familiar voice,even they have to meet thespirit that dwells within the land, under its sky, in its air, in itsvalleys, and on its rises, in its fields, in its waters and its treesamute friend, judge, and inspirer. By Joseph Conrad Face Lonely Judge Earth Obscure

The cabman looked at the pieces of silver, which, appearing very minute in his big, grimy palm, symbolised the insignificant results which reward the ambitious courage and toil of a mankind whose day is short on this earth of evil. By Joseph Conrad Silver Appearing Big Grimy Palm

Surprising. It was just like Marlow. It was accepted in silence. No one took the trouble to grunt even; and presently he said, very slow - I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago - the other day ... Light came out of this river since - you say Knights? Yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker - may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was By Joseph Conrad Surprising Marlow Knights Romans Silence

I had turned away from the picture and was going back to the world where events move, men change, light flickers, life flows in a clear stream, no matter whether over mud or over stones. By Joseph Conrad Move Men Change Light Flickers

Feeling would not last long. Something would turn up to scare it away. Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. There wasn't even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears the French had one of their wars going on thereabouts. Her ensign dropped limp like a rag; the muzzles of the long eight-inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung By Joseph Conrad Feeling Long French Turn Scare

Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. There wasn't even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears the French had one of their wars going on thereabouts. Her ensign dropped limp like a rag; the muzzles of the long six-inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech - and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives - he called them enemies! - hidden out of sight somewhere. By Joseph Conrad Remember Anchored Coast Sixinch Guns

One must explore deep and believe the incredible to find the new particles of truth floating in an ocean of insignificance. By Joseph Conrad Insignificance Explore Deep Incredible Find

Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terrorof an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some visionhe cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath:The horror! The horror! By Joseph Conrad Approaching Change Features Hope Horror

There is a weird power in a spoken word. By Joseph Conrad Word Weird Power Spoken

No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze. Don't you know the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment, its black thoughts, its sombre and brooding ferocity? Well, I do. It takes a man all is inborn strength to fight hunger properly. It's really easier to face bereavement, dishonour, and the perdition of one's soul - than this kind of prolonged hunger. Sad, but true. And these chaps, too, had no earthly reason for any kind of scruple. Restraint! I would just as soon have expected restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefield. By Joseph Conrad Beliefs Hunger Disgust Superstition Principles

They were dying slowly - it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now - nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. By Joseph Conrad Slowly Clear Dying Enemies Criminals

The afternoon breeze would incite to a weird and flabby activity all that crowded mass of clothing, with its vague suggestions of drowned, mutilated and flattened humanity. Trunks without heads waved at you arms without hands; legs without feet kicked fantastically with collapsible flourishes; and there were long white garments, that taking the wind fairly through their neck openings edged with lace, became for a moment violently distended as by the passage of obese and invisible bodies. On these days you could make out that ship at a great distance by the multi-coloured grotesque riot going on abaft her mizzen-mast. By Joseph Conrad Clothing Drowned Mutilated Humanity Afternoon

I felt in my heart that the further one ventures the better one understands how everything in our life is common, short, and empty; that it is in seeking the unknown in our sensations that we discover how mediocre are our attempts and how soon defeated! By Joseph Conrad Short Common Empty Defeated Felt

And because you not always can keep your eyes shut there comes the real troublethe heart painthe world pain. I tell you, my friend, it is not good for you to find you cannot make your dream come true, for the reason that you not strong enough are, or not clever enough ... Ja! ... And all the time you are such a fine fellow too! Wie? Was? Gott im Himmel! How can that be? Ha! ha! ha!'The shadow prowling amongst the graves of butterflies laughed boisterously. By Joseph Conrad Pain Eyes Shut Real Troublethe

The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil water-way leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky--seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness. By Joseph Conrad Clouds Sky Darkness Offing Barred

extraordinary series of delays is not my fault. I did my possible.' The fat man sighed, 'Very sad.' 'And the pestiferous absurdity of his talk,' continued the other; 'he bothered me enough when he was here. "Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a center for trade of course, but also for humanizing, improving, instructing." Conceive you - that ass! And he wants to be manager! No, it's - ' Here he got choked by excessive indignation, and I lifted my head the least By Joseph Conrad Extraordinary Fault Series Delays Improving

How can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man's untrammelled feet may take him into by the way of solitude-utter solitude without a policeman-by the way of silence-utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbor can be heard whispering of public opinion? These little things make all the great difference. When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. By Joseph Conrad Silence Opinion Imagine Region Ages

There must be a wonderful soothing power in mere words since so many men have used them for self-communion. Being By Joseph Conrad Selfcommunion Wonderful Soothing Power Mere

A ship in dock, surrounded by quays and the walls of warehouses, has the appearance of a prisoner meditating upon freedom in the sadness of a free spirit put under restraint. By Joseph Conrad Dock Surrounded Warehouses Restraint Ship

They were no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force - nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind - as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea - something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to By Joseph Conrad Idea Colonists Squeeze Suspect Administration

They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute forcenothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blindas is very proper for those who tackle a darkness.The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. By Joseph Conrad Conquerors Brute Forcenothing Boast Strength

And suddenly I rejoiced in the great security of the sea as compared with the unrest of the land, in my choice of that untempted life presenting no disquieting problems, invested with an elementary moral beauty by the absolute straightforwardness of its appeal and by the singleness of its purpose. By Joseph Conrad Land Problems Invested Purpose Suddenly

That propensity of lifting every problem from the plane of the understandable by means of some sort of mystic expression, is very Russian. I knew her well enough to have discovered her scorn for all the practical forms of political liberty known to the western world. I suppose one must be a Russian to understand Russian simplicity, a terrible corroding simplicity in which mystic phrases clothe a naive and hopeless cynicism. I think sometimes that the psychological secret of the profound difference of that people consists in this, that they detest life, the irremediable life of the earth as it is, whereas we westerners cherish it with perhaps an equal exaggeration of its sentimental value. But this is a digression indeed ... By Joseph Conrad Russian Expression Propensity Lifting Problem

If you want to know the age of the Earth - look upon the sea in a storm. But what storm can fully reveal the heart of a man? Between Suez and the China Sea are many nameless men who prefer to live and die unknown. This is the story of one such man. Among the great gallery of rogues and heroes thrown up on the beaches and ports - no man was more respected or more damned than - Lord Jim. By Joseph Conrad Earth Sea Storm Man Age

Everything in the world reminded him of her. The beauty of the loved woman exists in the beauties of Nature. The swelling outlines of the hills, the curves of a coast, the free sinuosities of a river are less suave than the harmonious lines of her body, and when she moves, gliding lightly, the grace of her progress suggests the power of occult forces which rule the fascinating aspects of the visible world. By Joseph Conrad World Reminded Nature Beauty Loved

The hair of his face, on the contrary, carroty and flaming, resembled a growth of copper wire clipped short to the line of the lip; while, no matter how close he shaved, fiery metallic gleams passed, when he moved his head, over the surface of his cheeks. By Joseph Conrad Face Contrary Carroty Flaming Resembled

On the floor of a lofty portico. It made you feel very small, very lost, and yet it was not altogether depressing, that feeling. After all, if you were small, the grimy beetle crawled on - which was just what you wanted it to do. Where the pilgrims imagined it crawled to I don't know. To some place where they expected to get something, By Joseph Conrad Portico Small Floor Lofty Crawled

Stein lifted his hand. "And do you know how many opportunities I let escape; how many dreams I had lost that had come in my way?" He shook his head regretfully. "It seems to me that some would have been very fine - if I had made them come true. Do you know how many? Perhaps I myself don't know. By Joseph Conrad Stein Hand Lifted Escape Opportunities

A train of thought is never false. The falsehood lies deep in the necessities of existence. By Joseph Conrad False Train Thought Existence Falsehood

The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was very quiet there. At night sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high over our heads, till the first break of day. Whether it meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell. The dawns were heralded by the descent of a chill stillness; the wood-cutters slept, their fires burned low; the snapping of a twig would make you start. We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. By Joseph Conrad Return Deeper Reaches Opened Closed

But there is an unholy fascination in systematic noise. He did not flee from it incontinently, as one might have expected him to do. He remained, astonished at himself for remaining, since nothing could have been more repulsive to his tastes, more painful to his senses, and, so to speak, more contrary to his genius, than this rude exhibition of vigour. The Zangiacomo band was not making music; it was simply murdering silence with a vulgar, ferocious energy. One felt as if witnessing a deed of violence; and that impression was so strong that it seemed marvelous to see the people sitting so quietly on their chairs, drinking so calmly out of their glasses, and giving no signs of distress, anger, or fear. Heyst averted his gaze from the unnatural spectacle of their indifference. By Joseph Conrad Noise Unholy Fascination Systematic Incontinently

Life knows us not and we do not know life - -we don't know even our own thoughts. Half the words we use have no meaning whatever and of the other half each man understands each word after the fashion of his own folly and conceit. Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of tomorrow By Joseph Conrad Life Thoughts Half Words Conceit

The serenity of truth and the peace of death can be only secured through a largeness of contempt embracing all the profitable servitudes of life. He By Joseph Conrad Life Serenity Truth Peace Death

My weakness consists in not having a discriminating eye for the incidental for the externals, no eye for the hod of the rag-picker or the fine linen of the next mean. Next manthat's it. I have met so many men." he pursued, with momentary sadness "met them too with a certain, certain impact, let us say; like this fellow, for instance and in each case all I could see was merely a human being. A confounded democratic quality of vision which may be better than total blindness, but has been of no advantage to me I can assure you. Men expect one to take into account their fine linen. But I never could get up any enthusiasm about these things. Oh! It's a failing; and then comes a soft evening; a lot of men too indolent for whist and a story ... " [p.44] By Joseph Conrad Eye Externals Weakness Consists Discriminating

Seem at all surprising. It was just like Marlow. It was accepted in silence. No one took the trouble to grunt even; and presently he said, very slow - I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago - the other day ... Light came out of this river since - you say Knights? Yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker - may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. Imagine the feelings of a commander of a fine - what d'ye call 'em? - trireme in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenly to the north; run overland across the Gauls in a hurry; put in charge of one of these craft the legionaries, - a wonderful lot of handy men they must have been too - used to build, apparently By Joseph Conrad Surprising Marlow Romans Knights Mediterranean

The nations of the earth are mostly swayed by fear - fear of the sort that a little cheap oratory turns easily to rage, hate, and violence. By Joseph Conrad Hate Fear Rage Violence Nations

There werethings, he said mournfully, that perhaps could never be told, only hehad lived so much alone that sometimes he forgothe forgot. The lighthad destroyed the assurance which had inspired him in the distantshadows. By Joseph Conrad Werethings Mournfully Told Forgot Hehad

Some of us, regarding the ocean with understanding and affection, have seen it looking old, as if the immemorial ages had been stirred up from the undisturbed bottom of ooze. For it is a gale of wind that makes the sea look old. By Joseph Conrad Affection Ooze Ocean Understanding Immemorial

Mr Verloc extended as much recognition to Stevie as a man not particularly fond of animals may give to his wife's beloved cat; and this recognition, benevolent and perfunctory, was essentially of the same quality. By Joseph Conrad Verloc Stevie Cat Benevolent Perfunctory

It is a great doctor for sore hearts and sore heads, too, your ship's routine, which I have seen soothe - at least for a time - the most turbulent of spirits. There is health in it, and peace, and satisfaction of the accomplished round; for each day of the ship's life seems to close a circle within the wide ring of the sea horizon. It borrows a certain dignity of sameness from the majestic monotony of the sea. He who loves the sea loves also the ship's routine. By Joseph Conrad Sore Ship Sea Routine Heads

The most precise of her sayings seemed always to me to have enigmatical prolongations vanishing somewhere beyond my reach. I am reduced to suppose that she appreciated my attention and my silence. The attention she could see was quite sincere, so that the silence could not be suspected of coldness. It seemed to satisfy her. And it is to be noted that if she confided in me it was clearly not with the expectation of receiving advice, for which, indeed, she never asked. By Joseph Conrad Reach Precise Enigmatical Prolongations Vanishing

And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offence, isn't it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill- he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offence, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness. But By Joseph Conrad Love Vices Respect Ceases Order

It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time, from the Golden Hind returning with her round flanks full of treasure, to be visited by the Queen's Highness and thus pass out of the gigantic tale, to the Erebus and Terror, bound on other conquests - and that never returned. It had known the ships and the men. They had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, from Erith - the adventurers and the settlers; kings' ships and the ships of men on 'Change; captains, admirals, the dark "interlopers" of the Eastern trade, and the commissioned "generals" of East India fleets. Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! . . . The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires. By Joseph Conrad Ships Terror Golden Hind Queen

The unchanging Man of history is wonderfully adaptable cloth by his power of endurance and in his capacity for detachment. The fact seems to be that the play of his destiny is too great for his fears and too mysterious for his understanding. Were the trump of the Last Judgement to sound suddenly on a working day the musician at his piano would go on with his performance of Beethoven's Sonata and the cobbler at his stall stick to his last in undisturbed confidence in the virtues of the leather. And with perfect propriety. For what are we to let ourselves be disturbed by an angel's vengeful music too mighty for our ears and too awful for our terrors ? Thus it happens to us to be struck suddenly by the lightning of wrath. The reader will go on reading if the book pleases him and the critic will go on criticizing with that faculty of detachment born perhaps from a sense of infinite littleness and wich is yet the only faculty that seems to assimilate man to the immortal gods. By Joseph Conrad Unchanging History Wonderfully Adaptable Cloth

wax and seemed dumbfounded by the accident. Next thing he wanted to know 'how long it would take to' . . . I interrupted him again. Being hungry, you know, and kept on my feet too, I was getting savage. 'How could I tell,' I said. 'I hadn't even seen the wreck yet - some months, no doubt.' All this talk seemed to me so futile. 'Some months,' he said. 'Well, let us say three months before we can make a start. Yes. That ought to do the affair.' I flung out of his hut (he lived all alone in a clay hut with a sort of veranda) muttering to By Joseph Conrad Wax Accident Dumbfounded Months Hut

It doesnot matter; there's many a heavenly body in the lot crowding upon us ofa night that mankind had never heard of, it being outside the sphereof its activities and of no earthly importance to anybody but to theastronomers who are paid to talk learnedly about its composition,weight, paththe irregularities of its conduct, the aberrations of itslighta sort of scientific scandal-mongering. By Joseph Conrad Matter Compositionweight Paththe Conduct Scandalmongering

Beyond the fence the forest stood up spectrally in the moonlight, and through the dim stir, through the faint sounds of that lamentable courtyard, the silence of the land went home to one's very heart - its mystery, its greatness, the amazing reality of its concealed life. By Joseph Conrad Moonlight Stir Courtyard Heart Mystery

Marvellous!" he repeated, looking up at me. "Look! The beautybut that is nothinglook at the accuracy, the harmony. And so fragile! And so strong! And so exact! This is Naturethe balance of colossal forces. Every star is soand every blade of grass stands soand the mighty Kosmos il perfect equilibrium producesthis. This wonder; this masterpiece of Naturethe great artist. By Joseph Conrad Marvellous Repeated Naturethe Soand Kosmos

Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you, smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, "Come and find out". By Joseph Conrad Watching Enigma Smiling Frowning Inviting

No wonder there are bandits in the Campo when there are none but thieves, swindlers, and sanguinary macaques to rule us... By Joseph Conrad Swindlers Campo Thieves Bandits Sanguinary

You, too!" it seemed to say, "you, too, shall taste of that peace and that unrest in a searching intimacy with your own self - obscure as we were and as supreme in the face of all the winds andall the seas, in an immensity that receives no impress, preservesno memories, and keeps no reckoning of lives. By Joseph Conrad Obscure Seas Impress Preservesno Memories

The beauty of the loved woman exists in the beauties of Nature. By Joseph Conrad Nature Beauty Loved Woman Exists

It was another of Nostromo's triumphs, the greatest, the most enviable, the most sinister of all. In that true cry of undying passion that seemed to ring aloud from Punta Mala to Azuera and away to the bright line of the horizon, overhung by a big white cloud shining like a mass of solid silver, the genius of the magnificent Capataz de Cargadores dominated the dark gulf containing his conquests of treasure and love. By Joseph Conrad Nostromo Triumphs Greatest Enviable Sinister

I ask myself whether his rush had really carried him out of that mist in which he loomed interesting if not very big, with floating outlines - a straggler yearning inconsolably for his humble place in the ranks. And besides, the last word is not said, - probably shall never be said. Are not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all our stammerings is of course our only and abiding intention? ... There is never time to say our last word - the last word of our love, of our desire, faith, remorse, submissions, revolt. ... My last words about Jim shall be few. I affirmed that he achieved greatness. By Joseph Conrad Word Big Outlines Ranks Rush

Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of to-morrow ... In this world - as I have known it - we are made to suffer without the shadow of a reason, of a cause or of guilt ... There is no morality, no knowledge and no hope; there is only the consciousness of ourselves which drives us about a world that ... is always but a vain and floating appearance ... A moment, a twinkling of an eye and nothing remains - but a clot of mud, of cold mud, of dead mud cast into black space, rolling around an extinguished sun. Nothing. Neither thought, nor sound, nor soul. Nothing. By Joseph Conrad Words Die Faith Shore Vanish

There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination - you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate. By Joseph Conrad Mysteries Initiation Fascination Incomprehensible Detestable

Two women, one fat and the other slim, sat on straw-bottomed chairs, knitting black wool. The slim one got up and walked straight at me - still knitting with downcast eyes - and only just as I began to think of getting out of her way, as you would for a somnambulist, stood still, and looked up. Her dress was as plain as an umbrella-cover, and she turned round without a word and preceded me into a waiting-room. By Joseph Conrad Women Sat Chairs Wool Slim

Horror!' "'His last word - to live with,' she murmured. 'Don't you understand I loved him - I loved him - I loved him!' "I pulled myself together and spoke slowly. "'The last word he pronounced By Joseph Conrad Horror Loved Word Murmured Live

Oh the glamour of youth! Oh the fire of it, more dazzling than the flames of the burning ship, throwing a magic light on the wide earth, leaping audaciously to the sky, presently to be quenched by time, more cruel, more pitiless, more bitter than the sea - and like the flames of the burning ship surrounded by an impenetrable night. By Joseph Conrad Youth Flames Burning Glamour Ship

The wicked people were gone, but fear remained.Fear always remains. A man may destroy everything within himself, love and hate and belief, and even doubt; but as long as he clings to life the cannot destroy fear: the fear, subtle, indestructible, and terrible, that pervades his being; that tinges his thoughts; that lurks in his heart; what watches on his lips the struggle of his last breath. By Joseph Conrad Fear Remains Wicked People Remainedfear

I would not unduly praise the virtue of restraint. It is often merely temperamental. But it is not always a sign of coldness. It may be pride. There can be nothing more humiliating than to see the shaft of one's emotion miss the mark of either laughter or tears. Nothing more humiliating! And this for the reason that should the mark be missed, should the open display of emotion fail to move, then it must perish unavoidably in disgust or contempt. By Joseph Conrad Restraint Unduly Praise Virtue Humiliating

They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance. By Joseph Conrad Thoughts Trespassed Bearing Pretense Knew

She had said he had been driven away from her by a dream ... By Joseph Conrad Dream Driven

Over the lives borne from under the shadow of death there seems to fall the shadow of madness. By Joseph Conrad Shadow Madness Lives Borne Death

And in this case his great practice in it was assisted by hate, which, like love, has an eloquence of its own. By Joseph Conrad Hate Love Case Great Practice

This is glorious!' I cried, and then i looked at the sinner by my side. He sat with his head sunk on his breast and said 'Yes', without raising his eyes, as if afraid to see writ large on the clear sky of the offing the reproach of his romantic conscience. By Joseph Conrad Glorious Cried Side Looked Sinner

I can't tell if a straw ever saved a drowning man, but I know that a mere glance is enough to make dspair pause. For in truth, we who are creatures of impulse, are creatures of despair. By Joseph Conrad Man Pause Creatures Straw Saved

For history is made with tools, not with ideas; and everything is changed by economic conditions - art, philosophy, love, virtue - truth itself! By Joseph Conrad Art Philosophy Love Virtue Tools

It would take too long to explain the intimate alliance of contradictions in human nature which makes love itself wear at times the desperate shape of betrayal. And perhaps there is no possible explanation. By Joseph Conrad Betrayal Long Explain Intimate Alliance

Resignation, not mystic, not detached, but resignation open-eyed, conscious, and informed by love, is the only one of our feelings for which it is impossible to become a sham. By Joseph Conrad Conscious Mystic Detached Openeyed Love

He seemed to hasten the retreat of departing light by his very presence; the setting sun dipped sharply, as though fleeing before our nigger; a black mist emanated from him; a subtle and dismal influence; a something cold and gloomy that floated out and settled on all the faces like a mourning veil. The circle broke up. The joy of laughter died on stiffened lips. By Joseph Conrad Presence Sharply Nigger Influence Veil

The well-known shrill voice startled Almayer from his dream of splendid future into the unpleasant realities of the present hour. An unpleasant voice too. He had heard it for many years, and with every year he liked it less. No matter; there would be an end to all this soon. By Joseph Conrad Almayer Hour Voice Unpleasant Wellknown

To snatch in a moment of courage, from the remorseless rush of time, a passing phase of life, is only the beginning of the task. The task approached in tenderness and faith is to hold up unquestioningly, without choice and without fear, the rescued fragment before all eyes in the light of a sincere mood. It is to show its vibration, its color, its form; and through its movement, its form, and its color, reveal the substance of its truth - disclose its inspiring secret: the stress and passion within the core of each convincing moment. By Joseph Conrad Task Courage Time Life Snatch

Old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled By Joseph Conrad Day Peopled River Broad Reach

Books may be written in all sorts of places. Verbal inspiration may enter the berth of a mariner on board a ship frozen fast in a river in the middle of a town. By Joseph Conrad Books Places Written Sorts Verbal

And there was somewhere inside me the thought: By Jove! this is the deuce of an adventure - something you read about; and it is my first voyage as second mate - and I am only twenty - and here I am lasting it out as well as any of these men, and keeping my chaps up to the mark. I was pleased. I would not have given up the experience for worlds. I had moments of exultation. Whenever the old dismantled craft pitched heavily with her counter high in the air, she seemed to me to throw up, like an appeal, like a defiance, like a cry to the clouds without mercy, the words written on her stern: Judea, London. Do or Die. O youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it! To me she was not an old rattle-trap carting around the world a lot of coal for a freight - to me she was the endeavor, the test, the trial of life. I think of her with pleasure, with affection, with regret - as you would think of someone dead you have loved. I shall never forget her. By Joseph Conrad Jove Thought Inside Judea London

There too he had been treated with revolting injustice. His struggles, his privations,his hard work to raise himself in the social scale, hadfilled him with such an exalted conviction of his merits that it was extremely difficult for the world to treat him with justice - the standard of that notion depending so much upon the patience of the individual. The Professor had genius, but lacked the great social virtue of resignation. By Joseph Conrad Injustice Treated Revolting Social Professor

There are many shades in the danger of adventures and gales, and it is only now and then that there appears on the face of facts a sinister violence of intention- that indefinable something which forces it upon the mind and the heart of a man, that this complication of accidents or these elemental furies are coming at him with a purpose of malice, with a strength beyond control, with an unbridled cruelty that means to tear out of him his hope and his fear, the pain of his fatigue and his longing for rest: which means to smash, to destroy, to annihilate all he has seen, known, loved, enjoyed, or hated; all that is priceless and necessary- the sunshine, the memories, the future,- which means to sweep the whole precious world utterly away from his sight by the simple and appalling act of taking his life. By Joseph Conrad Loved Enjoyed Gales Intention Man

I saw only the reality of his destiny, which he had knownhow to follow with unfaltering footsteps, that life begun in humblesurroundings, rich in generous enthusiasms, in friendship, love, warinall the exalted elements of romance. By Joseph Conrad Love Destiny Footsteps Humblesurroundings Rich

As i emerge on deck the ordered arrangement of the stars meets my eye, unclouded, infinitely wearisome. There they are: stars, sun, sea, light, darkness, space, great waters; the formidable Work of the Seven Days, into which mankind seems to have blundered unbidden. Or else decoyed. By Joseph Conrad Unclouded Eye Infinitely Wearisome Stars

In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth. By Joseph Conrad Sea Joint Peaked Sprits Offing

The sea never changes and its works, for all the talks of men, are wrapped in mystery. By Joseph Conrad Works Men Mystery Sea Talks

One ship is very much like another and the sea is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny. By Joseph Conrad Sea Ship Foreign Destiny Shores

(about sailors) Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is always with them - the ship; and so is their country - the sea. One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny. For the rest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. By Joseph Conrad Sea Ship Order Sailors Country

One wonders that there can be found a man courageous enough to occupy the post. It is a matter of meditation. Having given it a few minutes I come to the conclusion in the serenity of my heart and the peace of my conscience that he must be either an extreme megalomaniac or an utterly unconscious being. By Joseph Conrad Post Found Man Courageous Occupy

Preparation for the future was necessary, and he was willing to admit that the great change would perhaps come in the upheaval of a revolution. But he argued that revolutionary propaganda was a delicate work of high conscience. It was the education of the masters of the world. It should be as careful as the education given to kings. By Joseph Conrad Preparation Revolution Future Admit Great

Would get angry through the greatness of his thirst, and take a terrible vengeance. So he sweated and fired up and watched the glass fearfully (with an impromptu charm, made of rags, tied to his arm, and a piece of polished bone, as big as a watch, stuck flatways through his lower lip), while the wooded banks slipped past us slowly, the short noise was left behind, the interminable miles of silence - and we crept on, towards Kurtz. By Joseph Conrad Thirst Vengeance Angry Greatness Terrible

Protection is the first necessity of opulence and luxury By Joseph Conrad Protection Luxury Necessity Opulence

...his words - the gift of expression, the bewildering, the iluminating, the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of light or the deceitful flow from the heart of an impenetrable darkness. By Joseph Conrad Words Expression Bewildering Iluminating Contemptible

If we could only get rid of consciousness. What makes mankind tragic is not that they are the victims of nature, it is that they are conscious of it. To be part of the animal kingdom under the conditions of this earth is very wellbut as soon as you know of your slavery, the pain, the anger, the strifethe tragedy begins. We can't return to nature, since we can't change our place in it. Our refuge is in stupidity [ ... ] There is no morality, no knowledge, and no hope; there is only the consciousness of ourselves which drives us about a world that [ ... ] is always but a vain and floating appearance. By Joseph Conrad Rid Nature Consciousness Makes Mankind

One must not make too much of anything in life, good or bad. By Joseph Conrad Life Good Bad Make

He steered for me - I had to look after him, I worried about his deficiencies, and thus a subtle bond had been created, of which I only became aware of when it was suddenly broken. And the intimate profundity of that look he gave me when he received his hurt remains to this day in my memory - like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in a supreme moment. By Joseph Conrad Deficiencies Created Broken Steered Worried

[T]he tremendous fact of our isolation, of the loneliness impenetrable and transparent, elusive and everlasting; of the indestructible loneliness that surrounds, envelops, clothes every human soul from the cradle to the grave, and, perhaps, beyond. By Joseph Conrad Envelops Loneliness Isolation Transparent Elusive

To break up the superstition and worship of legality should be our aim. Nothing would please me more than to see Inspector Heat and his likes take to shooting us down in broad daylight with the approval of the public. Half our battle would be won then; the desintegration of the old morality would have set in in its very temple. That is what you ought to aim at. But you revolutionists will never understand that. You plan the future, you lose yourselves in reveries of economical systems derived from what is; where as what's wanted is a clean sweep and a clear start for a new conception of life. That sort of future will take care of itself if you will only make room for it. Therefore I would shovel my stuff in heaps at the corners of the streets if I had enough for that; and as I haven't, I do my best by perfecting a really dependable detonator. By Joseph Conrad Break Superstition Worship Legality Aim

My task is to make you hear, feel and see. That and no more, and that is everything. By Joseph Conrad Hear Feel Task Make

Yes! Very funny this terrible thing is. A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea. If he tries to climb out into the air as inexperienced people endeavour to do, he drownsnicht wahr? ... No! I tell you! The way is to the destructive element submit yourself, and with the exertions of your hands and feet in the water make the deep, deep sea keep you up. So if you ask mehow to be? By Joseph Conrad Man Falls Sea Deep Funny

The mysteries of a universe made of drops of fire and clods of mud do not concern us in the least. The fate of humanity condemned ultimately to perish from cold is not worth troubling about. If you take it to heart it becomes an unendurable tragedy. If you believe in improvement you must weep, for the attained perfection must end in cold, darkness and silence. In a dispassionate view the ardour for reform, improvement for virtue, and knowledge, and even for beauty is only a vain sticking up for appearances as though one were anxious about the cut of one's clothes in a community of blind men. By Joseph Conrad Mysteries Universe Made Drops Fire

Follow your bliss. Find where it is and don't be afraid to follow it. By Joseph Conrad Bliss Follow Find Afraid

Felicity, felicity - how shall I say it? - is quaffed out of a golden cup in every latitude: the flavour is with you - with you alone, and you can make it as intoxicating as you please. By Joseph Conrad Felicity Latitude Quaffed Golden Cup

Perhaps life is just that... a dream and a fear By Joseph Conrad Life Fear Dream

He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a featherhat, walking on his hind legs. By Joseph Conrad Word Featherhat Walking Legs Edifying

Mr Verloc was going westward through a town without shadows in an atmosphere of powdered old gold By Joseph Conrad Verloc Gold Westward Town Shadows

The sea - this truth must be confessed - has no generosity. No display of manly qualities - courage, hardihood, endurance, faithfulness - has ever been known to touch its irresponsible consciousness of power. By Joseph Conrad Sea Confessed Generosity Courage Hardihood

Do you know how I would call the nature of the present economic conditions? I would call it cannibalistic. That's what it is! They are nourishing their greed on the quivering flesh and the warm blood of the people - nothing else. By Joseph Conrad Call Conditions Nature Present Economic

The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movementbut it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims. By Joseph Conrad Humane Noble Natures Scrupulous Devoted

A blinding sunlight drowned all this at times in a sudden recrudescence of glare. By Joseph Conrad Glare Blinding Sunlight Drowned Times

We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember because we were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign - and no memories. The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there - there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. By Joseph Conrad Surroundings Phantoms Wondering Appalled Madhouse

All my moral and intellectual being is penetrated by an invincible conviction that whatever falls under the dominion of our senses must be in nature and, however exceptional, cannot differ in its essence from all the other effects of the visible and tangible world of which we are a self-conscious part. The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries as it is - marvels and mysteries acting upon our emotions and intelligence in ways so inexplicable that it would almost justify the conception of life as an enchanted state. No, I am too firm in my consciousness of the marvelous to be ever fascinated by the mere supernatural which (take it any way you like) is but a manufactured article, the fabrication of minds insensitive to the intimate delicacies of our relation to the dead and to the living, in their countless multitudes; a desecration of our tenderest memories; an outrage on our dignity. By Joseph Conrad World Exceptional Part Moral Intellectual

I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmostphere of tepid scepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary. By Joseph Conrad Death Wrestled Great Imagine Unexciting

Who knows what true happiness is, not the conventional word.. but the naked terror. To the lonely themselves, that wears a mask, the most miserable outcast hugs some memory.. or some illusion. By Joseph Conrad Word True Happiness Conventional Terror

And the sense of security, even the most warranted, is a bad councillor. It is the sense which, like that exaggerated feeling of well-being ominous of the coming on of madness, precedes the swift fall of disaster. By Joseph Conrad Sense Security Warranted Councillor Bad

The Westerly Wind asserting his sway from the south-west quarter is often like a monarch gone mad, driving forth with wild imprecations the most faithful of his courtiers to shipwreck, disaster, and death. By Joseph Conrad Disaster Westerly Wind Mad Driving

I I alone know how to mourn for him as he deserves.' But while we were still shaking hands, such a look of awful desolation came upon her face that I perceived she was one of those creatures that are not the playthings of Time. For her he had died only yesterday. And, by Jove! the impression was so powerful that for me, too, he seemed to have died only yesterday nay, this very minute. I saw her and him in the same instant of time his death and her sorrow I saw her sorrow in the very moment of his death. Do you understand? I saw them together I heard them together. By Joseph Conrad Deserves Time Mourn Died Yesterday

And, don't you see, the terror of the position was not in being knocked on the head - though I had a very lively sense of that danger, too - but in this, that I had to deal with a being to whom I could not appeal in the name of anything high or low. I had, even like the niggers, to invoke him - himself - his own exalted and incredible degradation. There was nothing either above or below him, and I knew it. He had kicked himself loose of the earth. Confound the man! he had kicked the very earth to pieces. He was alone, and I before him did not know whether I stood on the ground of floated in the air. By Joseph Conrad Head Danger Low Terror Position

They wanted facts. Facts! They demanded facts from him, as if facts could explain anything! By Joseph Conrad Facts Wanted Demanded Explain

A certain readiness to perish is not so very rare, but it is seldom that you meet men whose souls, steeled in the impenetrable armour of resolution, are ready to fight a losing battle to the last, the desire of peace waxes stronger as hope declines, till at last it conquers the very desire of life. Which of us here has not observed this, or maybe experienced something of that feeling in his own person - this extreme weariness of emotions, the vanity of effort, the yearning for rest? By Joseph Conrad Desire Rare Souls Steeled Resolution

Sigh, and then my heart stood still, stopped dead short by an exulting and terrible cry, by the cry of inconceivable triumph and of unspeakable pain. 'I knew it - I was sure!' ... She knew. She was sure. I heard her weeping; she had hidden her face in her hands. It seemed to me that the house would collapse before I could escape, that the heavens would fall upon my head. But nothing happened. The heavens do not fall for such a trifle. Would they have fallen, I wonder, if I had rendered Kurtz that justice which was his due? Hadn't he said he wanted only justice? But I couldn't. I could not tell her. It would have been too dark - too dark altogether ... Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a meditating Buddha. Nobody moved By Joseph Conrad Cry Sigh Stopped Pain Heart

By heavens! there is something after all in the world allowing one man to steal a horse while another must not look at a halter. Steal a horse straight out. Very well. He has done it. Perhaps he can ride. But there is a way of looking at a halter that would provoke the most charitable of saints into a kick. By Joseph Conrad Heavens Steal Horse Halter World

He had entered by then the broad, human path of inconsistencies. By Joseph Conrad Broad Human Inconsistencies Entered Path

Thus ended the first and adventurous part of his existence. What followed was so different that, but for the reality of sorrow which remained with him, this strange part must have resembled a dream. By Joseph Conrad Existence Part Ended Adventurous Dream

It may be that it is this very dulness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and welcome. Nevertheless, there can be but few of us who had never known one of these rare moments of awakening when we see, hear, understand so mucheverythingin a flashbefore we fall back again into our agreeable somnolence. By Joseph Conrad Dulness Makes Life Incalculable Majority

It is the mark of an inexperienced man not to believe in luck. By Joseph Conrad Luck Mark Inexperienced Man

The artist descends within himself, and in that lonely region of stress and strife, if he be deserving and fortunate, he finds the terms of his appeal. His appeal is made to our less obvious capacities: to that part of our nature which, because of the warlike conditions of existence, is necessarily kept out of sight within the more resisting and hard qualities ... His appeal is less loud, more profound, less distinct, more stirring - and sooner forgotten. Yet its effect endures forever ... the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom: to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition - and, therefore, more permanently enduring. By Joseph Conrad Appeal Strife Fortunate Descends Lonely

And yet is not mankind itself, pushing on its blind way, driven by a dream of its greatness and its power upon the dark paths of excessive cruelty and of excessive devotion. And what is the pursuit of truth, after all? By Joseph Conrad Excessive Pushing Driven Devotion Mankind

It was solemn, and a little ridiculous too, as they always are, those struggles of an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what his moral identity should be, this precious notion of a convention, only one of the rules of the game, nothing more, but all the same so terribly effective by its assumption of unlimited power over natural instincts, by the awful penalties of its failure. By Joseph Conrad Solemn Convention Game Instincts Failure

He must meet that truth with his own true stuff - with his own inborn strength. Principles? Principles won't do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags - rags that would fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief. By Joseph Conrad Stuff Strength Principles Meet Truth

No man will speak to his master; but to a wanderer and a friend, to him who does not come to teach or to rule, to him who asks for nothing and accepts all things, words are spoken by the camp-fires, in the shared solitude of the sea, in riverside villages, in resting-places surrounded by forests - words are spoken that take no account of race or colour. One heart speaks - another one listens; and the earth, the sea, the sky, the passing wind and the stirring leaf, hear also the futile tale of the burden of life. By Joseph Conrad Words Spoken Sea Master Friend

But the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition - and, therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation - and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all humanity - the dead to the living and the living to the unborn. By Joseph Conrad Wisdom Acquisition Enduring Artist Appeals

An artist is a man of action, whether he creates a personality, invents an expedient, or finds the issue of a complicated situation. By Joseph Conrad Action Personality Invents Expedient Situation

The last thing a woman will consent to discover in a man whom she loves, or on whom she simply depends, is want of courage. By Joseph Conrad Loves Depends Courage Thing Woman

I wondered how far I should turn out faithful to that ideal conception of one's own personality every man sets up for himself secretly. By Joseph Conrad Secretly Wondered Turn Faithful Ideal

Nowhere else than upon the sea do the days, weeks, and months fall away quicker into the past. They seem to be left astern as easily as the light air-bubbles in the swirls of the ship's wake. By Joseph Conrad Weeks Days Past Sea Months

Time had past indeed: it had overtaken him and gone ahead. It had left him hopelessly behind with a few poor gifts: the iron grey hair, the heavy fatigue of the tanned face, two scars, a pair of tarnished shoulderstraps; one of those steady, reliable men who are the raw material of great reputations, one of those unaccounted lives that are buried without drums and trumpets under the foundations of monumental success. By Joseph Conrad Time Ahead Past Overtaken Gifts

From a letter to Barrett H.Clark, 4 May 1918(LL,II,pp.204-5):my attitude to subjects and expressions, the angles of vision, my methods of composition will, within limits, be always changingnot because I am unstable or unpricipled but because I am free. Or perhaps it may be more exact to say, because I am always trying for freedomwithin my limits ... A work of art is seldom limited to one exclusive meaning and not necessarily tending to a definite conclusion. And this for the reason that the nearer it approaches art, the more it acquires a symbolic character. By Joseph Conrad Barrett Limits Hclark Expressions Vision

The great wall of vegetation, an exuberant and entangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves, boughs, festoons, motionless in the moonlight, was like a rioting invasion of soundless life, a rolling wave of plants, piled up, crested, ready to topple over the creek, to sweep every little man of us out of his little existence. And it moved not. A deadened burst of mighty splashes and snorts reached us from afar, as though an ichthyosaurus had been taking a bath of glitter in the great river. By Joseph Conrad Branches Leaves Boughs Festoons Crested

The end (goal) of art is to figure the hidden meaning of things and not their appearance; for in this profound truth lies their true reality, which does not appear in their external outlines. By Joseph Conrad Goal End Appearance Reality Outlines

I've seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men - men, I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious he could be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand miles farther. By Joseph Conrad Devil Violence Greed Desire Stars

The artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition-and therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty and pain. By Joseph Conrad Wisdom Enduring Artist Appeals Part

He was little more than a voice. And I heard-him-it-this voice-other voices-all of them were so little more than voices-and the memory of that time itself lingers around me, impalpable, like a dying vibration of one immense jabber, silly, atrocious, sordid, savage, or simply mean, without any kind of sense. By Joseph Conrad Voice Impalpable Silly Atrocious Sordid

That faculty of beholding at a hint the face of his desire and the shape of his dream, without which the earth would know no lover and no adventurer. By Joseph Conrad Dream Adventurer Faculty Beholding Hint

Nothing is more painful than the shock of sharp contradictions that lacerate our intelligence and our feelings. By Joseph Conrad Feelings Painful Shock Sharp Contradictions

Way aft and sat down amongst us. We exchanged a few words lazily. Afterwards there was silence on board the yacht. For some reason or other we did not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; By Joseph Conrad Aft Sat Lazily Yacht Exchanged

I am quite willing to be the blind instrument of higher ends. To give one's life for the cause is nothing. But to have one's illusions destroyed - that is really almost more than one can bear. By Joseph Conrad Ends Blind Instrument Higher Destroyed

Is there a spot on earth where such a man is unknown, an ominous survival testifying to the eternal fitness of lies and impudence? By Joseph Conrad Unknown Impudence Spot Earth Man

It was then that Brown took his revenge upon the world which, after twenty years of contemptuous and reckless bullying, refused him the tribute of a common robber's success. It was an act of cold-blooded ferocity, and it consoled him on his deathbed like a memory of an indomitable defiance. . . . Thus Brown balanced his account with the evil fortune. Notice that even in this awful outbreak there is a superiority as of a man who carries right - the abstract thing - within the envelope of his common desires. It was not a vulgar and treacherous massacre; it was a lesson, a retribution - a demonstration of some obscure and awful attribute of our nature which, I am afraid, is not so very far under the surface as we like to think. By Joseph Conrad Bullying Refused Success Brown Revenge

It would have been so much in accordance with the wisdom of life, which consists in putting out of sight all the reminders of our folly, of our weakness, of our mortality; all that makes against our efficiency - the memory of our failures, the hints of our undying fears, the bodies of our dead friends. By Joseph Conrad Life Folly Weakness Mortality Efficiency

Formerly, in solitude and in silence, he had been used to think clearly and sometimes even profoundly, seeing life outside the flattering optical delusion of everlasting hope, of conventional self-deceptions, of an ever-expected happiness. By Joseph Conrad Silence Profoundly Hope Selfdeceptions Happiness

The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine. By Joseph Conrad Meaning Simplicity Nut Yarns Seamen

I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more /the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort /to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires /and expires, too soon, too soon /before life itself By Joseph Conrad Feeling Expires Grows Life Outlast

As is often the case with lawless natures, Ricardo's faith in any given individual was of a simple, unquestioning character. For man must have some support in life. By Joseph Conrad Ricardo Natures Simple Unquestioning Character

There is death in the folds of her skirt and blood about her feet. She is for no man. By Joseph Conrad Feet Death Folds Skirt Blood

And a word carries far-very far-deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space. By Joseph Conrad Space Word Carries Farvery Fardeals

He struggled with himself, too. I saw it I heard it. I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself. By Joseph Conrad Struggled Restraint Faith Fear Heard

No, I don't like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don't like work - no man does - but I like what is in the work, - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - what no other man can ever know. By Joseph Conrad Work Man Laze Fine Things

To be a great autocrat you must be a great barbarian. By Joseph Conrad Great Barbarian Autocrat

I have been very happy - very fortunate - very proud,' she went on. 'Too fortunate. Too happy for a little while. And now I am unhappy for - for life. By Joseph Conrad Fortunate Proud Happy Life Unhappy

It was rather like a forced-on numbness of spirit. The long, long stress of a gale does it; the suspense of the interminably culminating catastrophe; and there is a bodily fatigue in the mere holding on to existence within the excessive tumult; a searching and insidious fatigue that penetrates deep into a man's breast to cast down and sadden his heart, which is incorrigible, and of all the gifts of the earth - even before life itself - aspires to peace. By Joseph Conrad Spirit Forcedon Numbness Long Fatigue

After the cold gust of wind there was an absolute stillness of the air. The thunder-charged mass hung unbroken beyond the low, ink-black headland, darkening the twilight. By contrast, the sky at the zenith displayed pellucid clearness, the sheen of a delicate glass bubble which the merest movement of air might shatter. A little to the left, between the black masses of the headland and of the forest, the volcano, a feather of smoke by day and a cigar-glow at night, took its first fiery expanding breath of the evening. Above it a reddish star came out like an expelled spark from the fiery bosom of the earth, enchanted into permanency by the mysterious spell of frozen spaces. By Joseph Conrad Air Cold Gust Wind Absolute

To grapple effectually with even purely material problems requires more serenity of mind and more lofty courage than people generally imagine. No two beings could have been more unfitted for such a struggle. Society, not from any tenderness, but because of its strange needs, had taken care of those two men, forbidding them all independent thought, all initiative, all departure from routine; and forbidding it under pain of death. They could only live on condition of being machines. And now, released from the fostering care of men with pens behind the ears, or of men with gold lace on the sleeves, they were like those lifelong prisoners who, liberated after many years, do not know what use to make of their freedom. They did not know what use to make of their faculties, being both, through want of practice, incapable of independent thought. By Joseph Conrad Men Imagine Grapple Effectually Purely

Droll thing life is that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself that comes too late a crop of inextinguishable regrets. By Joseph Conrad Droll Purpose Thing Life Mysterious

Destiny. My destiny! Droll thing life isthat mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. By Joseph Conrad Destiny Droll Purpose Thing Life

The atmosphere of officialdom would kill anything that breathes the air of human endeavour, would extinguish hope and fear alike in the supremacy of paper and ink. By Joseph Conrad Endeavour Ink Atmosphere Officialdom Kill

It is a fact that the bitterest contradictions and the deadliest conflicts of the world are carried on in every individual breast capable of feeling and passion. [An anarchist] By Joseph Conrad Passion Fact Bitterest Contradictions Deadliest

This, let me remind you again, is a love story; you can see it by the imbecility, not a repulsive imbecility, the exalted imbecility of these proceedings, this station in torchlight, as if they had come there on purpose to have it out for the edification of concealed murderers. By Joseph Conrad Imbecility Story Proceedings Torchlight Murderers

Joseph Conrad once said that a man who is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea By Joseph Conrad Man Falls Conrad Joseph Sea

Fiction, at the point of development at which it has arrived, demands from the writer a spirit of scrupulous abnegation.The only legitimate of all the irreconcilable antagonisms that make our life so enigmatic, so burdensome, so fascinating, so dangerousso full of hope. They exist! And this is the only fundamental truth of fiction. By Joseph Conrad Arrived Demands Enigmatic Burdensome Fascinating

The moon had spread over everything a thin layer of silver - over the rank grass, over the mud, upon the wall of matted vegetation standing higher than the wall of a temple, over the great river I could see through a sombre gap glittering, glittering, as it flowed broadly by without a murmur. All this was great, expectant, mute, while the man jabbered about himself. By Joseph Conrad Wall Glittering Silver Grass Mud

Had he been informed by an indisputable authority that the end of the world was to be finally accomplished by a catastrophic disturbance of the atmosphere, he would have assimilated the information under the simple idea of dirty weather, and no other, because he had no experience of cataclysms, and belief does not necessarily imply comprehension. By Joseph Conrad Atmosphere Weather Cataclysms Comprehension Informed

I was anxious to deal with this shadow by myself alone -- and to this day I don't know why I was so jealous of sharing with any one the peculiar blackness of that experience. By Joseph Conrad Experience Anxious Deal Shadow Day

We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marsh was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. Only By Joseph Conrad Meditative Staring Felt Fit Placid

The simple old sailor, with his talk of chains and purchases, made me forget the jungle and the pilgrims in a delicious sensation of having come upon something unmistakably real. Such a book being there was wonderful enough; but still more astounding were the notes penciled in the margin, and plainly referring to the text. I couldn't believe my eyes! They were in cipher! Yes, it looked like cipher. By Joseph Conrad Sailor Purchases Made Real Simple

You can't breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence. By Joseph Conrad Sleeping Waking Eating Existence Breathe

Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. By Joseph Conrad World Kings River Traveling Back

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it much. By Joseph Conrad Earth Conquest Taking Complexion Slightly

It was a great peace, as if the earth had been one grave, and for a time I stood there thinking mostly of the living who, buried in remote places out of the knowledge of mankind, are still fated to share in its tragic or grotesque miseries. In its noble struggles too who knows? The human heart is vast enough to contain all the world. It is valient enough to bear the burden, but where is the courage that would cast it off? By Joseph Conrad Peace Grave Buried Mankind Miseries

Madness alone is truly terrifying, inasmuch as you cannot placate it by threats, persuasion, or bribes. By Joseph Conrad Persuasion Madness Terrifying Threats Bribes

It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over. By Joseph Conrad Queer Touch Truth Women Live

You must squeeze out of yourself every sensation, every thought, every image, - mercilessly, without reserve and without remorse: you must search the darkest corners of your heart, the most remote recesses of your brain, - you must search them for the image, for the glamour, for the right expression. And you must do it sincerely, at any cost: you must do it so that at the end of your day's work you should feel exhausted, emptied of every sensation and every thought, with a blank mind and an aching heart, with the notion that there is nothing, - nothing left in you. By Joseph Conrad Image Search Thought Heart Mercilessly

I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts. By Joseph Conrad Cookery Beer Found Back Sepulchral

The unwholesome-looking little moral agent of destruction exulted silently in the possession of personal prestige, keeping in check this man armed with the defensive mandate of a menaced society. More fortunate than Caligula, who wished that the Roman Senate had only one head for the better satisfaction of his cruel lust, he beheld in that one man all the forces he had set at defiance: the force of law, property, oppression, and injustice. He beheld all his enemies and fearlessly confronted them all in a supreme satisfaction of his vanity. They stood perplexed before him as if before a dreadful portent. He gloated inwardly over the chance of this meeting affirming his superiority over all the multitude of mankind. By Joseph Conrad Man Prestige Keeping Society Unwholesomelooking

I am saddened by the modern system of advertising. Whatever evidence it offers of enterprise, ingenuity, impudence, and resource in certain individuals, it proves to my mind the wide prevalence of that form of mental degradation which is called gullibility. [An anarchist] By Joseph Conrad Advertising Saddened Modern System Ingenuity

Being myself animated by feelings of affection toward my fellowmen, I am saddened by the modern system of advertising. Whatever evidence it offers of enterprise, ingenuity, impudence, and resource in certain individuals, it proves to my mind the wide prevalence of that form of mental degradation which is called gullibility. By Joseph Conrad Fellowmen Advertising Animated Feelings Affection

A half-naked, betel-chewing pessimist stood upon the bank of the tropical river, on the edge of the still and immense forests; a man angry, powerless, empty-handed, with a cry of bitter discontent ready on his lips; a cry that, had it come out, would have rung through the virgin solitudes of the woods as true, as great, as profound, as any philosophical shriek that ever came from the depths of an easy chair to disturb the impure wilderness of chimneys and roofs. By Joseph Conrad Cry Powerless Emptyhanded Halfnaked Betelchewing

and in time, when yet very young, he became chief mate of a fine ship, without ever having been tested by those events of the sea that show in the light of day the inner worth of a man, the edge of his temper, and the fibre of his stuff; that reveal the quality of his resistance and the By Joseph Conrad Time Young Ship Man Temper

Art itself my be defined as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe. By Joseph Conrad Art Universe Defined Singleminded Attempt

The last thing I want to tell you is this: in a real revolution - not a simple dynastic change or a mere reform of institutions - in a real revolution the best characters do not come to the front. A violent revolution falls into the hands of narrow-minded fanatics and of tyrannical hypocrites at first. Afterwards comes the turn of all the pretentious intellectual failures of the time. Such are the chiefs and the leaders. You will notice that I have left out the mere rogues. The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement - but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims: the victims of disgust, of disenchantment - often of remorse. Hopes grotesquely betrayed, ideals caricatured - that is the definition of revolutionary success. There have been in every revolution hearts broken by such successes. But enough of that. My meaning is that I don't want you to be a victim. By Joseph Conrad Real Revolution Institutions Front Thing

My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feelit is, before all, to make you see. By Joseph Conrad Make Task Word Hear Achieve

The encounter did not leave behind with Chief Inspector Heat that satisfactory sense of superiority the members of the police force get from the unofficial but intimate side of their intercourse with the criminal classes, by which the vanity of power is soothed, and the vulgar love of domination over our fellow creatures is flattered as worthily as it deserves. By Joseph Conrad Chief Inspector Heat Classes Soothed

Are not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all our stammerings is of course our only and abiding intention? By Joseph Conrad Intention Lives Short Full Utterance

Egoism , which is the moving force of the world, and altruism , which is its morality , these two contradictory instincts , of which one is so plain and the other so mysterious, cannot serve us unless in the incomprehensible alliance of their irreconcilable antagonism. By Joseph Conrad Egoism World Altruism Morality Instincts

But in a gale, the silent machinery of a sailing-ship would catch not only the power, but the wild and exulting voice of the world's soul. Whether she ran with her tall spars swinging, or breasted it with her tall spars lying over, there was always that wild song, deep like a chant, for a bass to the shrill pipe of the wind played on the sea-tops, with a punctuating crash, now and then, of a breaking wave. At times the weird effects of that invisible orchestra would get upon a man's nerves till he wished himself deaf. By Joseph Conrad Wild Gale Power Soul Tall

I would just as soon have abused the old village church at home for not being a cathedral. By Joseph Conrad Cathedral Abused Village Church Home

I had to bear the sunken glare of his fierce crow-footed eyes if I wanted to know; and so I bore it, reflecting how much certain forms of evil are akin to madness, derived from intense egoism, inflamed by resistance, tearing the soul to pieces, and giving factitious vigour to the body. By Joseph Conrad Reflecting Madness Derived Egoism Inflamed

You know I hate, detest, and can't bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appals me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies - which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world - what I want to forget. By Joseph Conrad Hate Detest Bear Straighter Rest

Claiming that the destructive practice of mountaintop removal mining, blowing the tops off mountains to get at the coal beneath, performs the "necessary" function of creating flat land for development To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe. By Joseph Conrad Land Claiming Mining Blowing Beneath

[The wilderness] had caressed him, and - lo! - he had withered; it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation. By Joseph Conrad Wilderness Caressed Withered Loved Embraced

From the ground. They waded waist-deep in the grass, in a compact body, bearing an improvised stretcher in their midst. Instantly, in the emptiness of the landscape, a cry arose whose shrillness pierced the still air like a sharp arrow By Joseph Conrad Ground Grass Body Bearing Midst

The cab rattled, jingled, jolted; in fact, the last was quite extraordinary. By its disproportionate violence and magnitude it obliterated every sensation of onward movement; and the effect was of being shaken in a stationary apparatus like a mediaeval device for the punishment of crime, or some very newfangled invention for the cure of a sluggish liver. It was extremely distressing; and the raising of Mrs Verloc's mother's voice sounded like a wail of pain. By Joseph Conrad Jingled Jolted Rattled Fact Extraordinary

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention, but fear too, is not barren of ingenious suggestions.""Nice little saloon, isn't it" I said, as if noticing it for the first time."At noon I gave no orders for change of course, and the mates whiskers grew much concerned and seemed to be offering themselves to my unduly notice. By Joseph Conrad Necessity Nice Invention Suggestions Saloon

Necessity, they say, is mother of invention, but fear, too, is not barren of ingenious suggestions. By Joseph Conrad Necessity Invention Fear Suggestions Mother

We are snared into doing things for which we get called names, and things for which we get hanged, and yet the spirit may well survive - survive the condemnations, survive the halter, by Jove! And there are things - they look small enough sometimes too - by which some of us are totally and completely undone. By Joseph Conrad Survive Jove Things Hanged Condemnations

I slipped the book into my pocket. I assure you to leave off reading was like tearing myself away from the shelter of an old and solid friendship. By Joseph Conrad Pocket Slipped Book Friendship Assure

They had never returned. What became of the hens I don't know either. I should think the cause of progress got them, anyhow. However, through this glorious affair I got my appointment, before I had fairly begun to hope for it. I flew around like mad to get ready, and before forty-eight hours I was crossing the Channel to show myself to my employers, and sign the contract. In a very few hours I arrived in a city that always makes me think of By Joseph Conrad Returned Hours Channel Hens Appointment

We live as we dream - alone. While the dream disappears, the life continues painfully. By Joseph Conrad Dream Live Disappears Painfully Life

Often far away there I thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness, knitting black wool as for a warm pall, one introducing, introducing continuously to the unknown, the other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old eyes. Ave! Old knitter of black wool. Morituri te salutant. Not many of those she looked at ever saw her againnot half, by a long way. By Joseph Conrad Darkness Introducing Guarding Knitting Pall

As to honor - you know - it's a very fine mediaeval inheritance which women never got hold of. It wasn't theirs. By Joseph Conrad Honor Fine Mediaeval Inheritance Women

Don't you forget what's divine in the Russian soul and that's resignation. By Joseph Conrad Russian Resignation Forget Divine Soul

A fool has more ideas than a wise man can foresee. By Joseph Conrad Foresee Fool Ideas Wise Man

This is Nature - the balance of colossal forces ... the mighty Cosmos in perfect equilibrium produces - this ... sometimes it seems to me that man is come where he is not wanted ... why should he run about here and there, talking about the stars, disturbing the blades of grass?from Lord Jim By Joseph Conrad Nature Forces Balance Colossal Cosmos

Sometimes it seems to me that man is come where he is not wanted, where there is no place for him; for if not, why should he want all the place? Why should he run about here and there making a great noise about himself, talking about the stars, disturbing the blades of grass? By Joseph Conrad Place Wanted Man Talking Stars

Perhaps on some quiet night the tremor of far-off drums, sinking, swelling, a tremor vast, faint; a sound weird, appealing, suggestive and wild - and perhaps with as profound a meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian country. By Joseph Conrad Sinking Swelling Faint Appealing Christian

The vision seemed to enter the house with me - the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshippers, the gloom of the forests, the glitter of the reach between the murky bends, the beat of the drum, regular and muffled like the beating of a heart - the heart of a conquering darkness. By Joseph Conrad Heart Stretcher Phantombearers Worshippers Forests

Don't be too sure,' he continued. The other day I took up a man who hanged himself on the road. He was a Swede, too.' 'Hanged himself! Why, in God's name?' I cried. He kept on looking out watchfully. 'Who knows? The sun too much for him, or the country perhaps. By Joseph Conrad Continued Hanged Swede Road God

If it be true that every novel contains an element of autobiography - and this can hardly be denied, since the creator can only express himself in his creation - then there are some of us to whom an open display of sentiment is repugnant. By Joseph Conrad Autobiography Denied Creation Repugnant True

Hot-tempered, but the sight of some nondescript and miry creature sitting cross-legged amongst a lot of loose straw, and swinging itself to and fro like a bear in a cage, made him pause. Then this tramp stood up silently before him, one mass of mud and filth from head to foot. Smith, alone amongst his stacks with this apparition, in the stormy twilight ringing with the infuriated barking of the dog, felt the dread of an inexplicable strangeness. But when that being, parting with By Joseph Conrad Hottempered Straw Cage Made Pause

Soul! If anybody had ever struggled with a soul, I am the man. And I wasn't arguing with a lunatic either. Believe me or not, his intelligence was perfectly clear - concentrated, it is true, upon himself with horrible intensity, yet clear; and therein was my only chance - barring, of course, the killing him there and then, which wasn't so good, on account of unavoidable noise. But his soul was mad. By Joseph Conrad Soul Clear Man Concentrated Barring

; the chipped plates might have been disinterred from some kitchen midden near an inhabited lake; and the chops recalled times more ancient still. They brought forcibly to one's mind the night of ages when the primeval man, evolving the first rudiments of cookery from his dim consciousness, scorched lumps of flesh at a fire of sticks ... By Joseph Conrad Lake Chipped Plates Disinterred Kitchen

Well, you know that was the worst of it - this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity - like yours - the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was justly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you - you so remote from the night of first ages could comprehend. By Joseph Conrad Inhuman Worst Thought Suspicion Remote

The very young have, properly speaking, no moments. It is theprivilege of early youth to live in advance of its days in all the beautifulcontinuity of hope which knows no pauses and no introspection. By Joseph Conrad Properly Speaking Moments Young Introspection

From afar at the end of Tsar Peter Straat, issued in the frosty air the tinkle of bells of the horse tramcars, appearing and disappearing in the opening between the buildings, like little toy carriages harnessed with toy horses and played with by people that appeared no bigger than children. By Joseph Conrad Straat Toy Tsar Peter Issued

How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a spectre through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its spectral throat? By Joseph Conrad Fear Kill Spectral Heart Slash

French steamer, and she called in every blamed port they have out there, for, as far as I could see, the sole purpose of landing soldiers and custom-house officers. I watched the coast. Watching a coast By Joseph Conrad French Steamer Officers Coast Called

History repeats itself, but the special call of an art which has passed away is never reproduced. It is as utterly gone out of the world as the song of a destroyed wild bird. By Joseph Conrad History Reproduced Repeats Special Call

Danger lies in the writer becoming the victim of his own exaggeration ... and in the end coming to despise truth itself as something too cold, too blunt for his purpose - as, in fact, not good enough for his insistent emotion. From laughter and tears the descent is easy to sniveling and giggles. By Joseph Conrad Danger Exaggeration Cold Purpose Fact

Man. I nearly burst into a laugh. 'Do you read the Company's confidential correspondence?' I asked. He hadn't a word to say. It was great fun. 'When Mr. Kurtz,' I continued By Joseph Conrad Man Company Laugh Kurtz Correspondence

Arrested me, and he stood by civilly, holding a half-pint champagne bottle (medical comforts) with the candle stuck in it. To my question he said Mr. Kurtz had painted this - in this very station more than a year ago - while waiting for means to go to his trading-post. 'Tell me, pray,' said I, 'who is this Mr. Kurtz? By Joseph Conrad Arrested Civilly Holding Bottle Medical

You read the Company's confidential correspondence?' I asked. He hadn't a word to say. It was great fun. 'When Mr. Kurtz,' I continued severely, 'is General Manager, you won't have the opportunity.' He blew the candle out suddenly, and we went outside. The moon had risen. Black By Joseph Conrad Company Correspondence Read Confidential Kurtz

Let a fool be made serviceable according to his folly. By Joseph Conrad Folly Fool Made Serviceable

Society was calling to its accomplished child to come, to be taken care of, to be instructed, to be judged, to be condemned; it called him to return to that rubbish heap from which he had wandered away, so that justice could be done. By Joseph Conrad Society Instructed Judged Condemned Calling

Toodles looked so thunderstruck that the Assistant Commissioner smiled faintly. By Joseph Conrad Assistant Commissioner Toodles Faintly Looked

Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dreammaking a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is the very essence of dreams ... By Joseph Conrad Story Surprise Attempt Dreamsensation Absurdity

It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream - making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams By Joseph Conrad Dream Surprise Making Attempt Dreamsensation

My task is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feelit is, before all, to make you see. Thatand no more, and it is everything. By Joseph Conrad Make Word Hear Task Power

The earth for us is a place to live in, where we must put up with sights, with sounds, with smells, too, by Jove! - breathe dead hippo, so as to speak, and not be contaminated. And there, don't you see? your strength comes in, the faith in your ability for the digging of unostentatious holes to bury the stuff in - your power of devotion, not to yourself, but to an obscure, back-breaking business. By Joseph Conrad Jove Sights Sounds Smells Earth

Criticism, that fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters. By Joseph Conrad Criticism Letters Fine Flower Personal

In the destructive element immerse. By Joseph Conrad Immerse Destructive Element

The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries..acting upon our emotions and intelligence in ways so inexplicable that it would almost justify the conception of life as an enchanted state. No, I am too firm in my consciousness of the marvellous to be ever fascinated by the mere supernatural ... By Joseph Conrad Mysteries Acting State World Living

The vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience. By Joseph Conrad Conscience Vilest Scramble Loot Disfigured

No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existencethat which makes its truth, its meaningits subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dreamalone. By Joseph Conrad Impossible Truth Essence Convey Lifesensation

It was the very essence of his life to be a solitary achievement, accomplished not by hermit-like withdrawal with it's silence and immobility but by a system of restless wandering, by the detachment of an impermanent dweller amongst changing scenes. In this scheme he had perceived the means of passing through life without suffering and almost without a single care in the world- invulnerable because elusive. By Joseph Conrad Achievement Accomplished Wandering Scenes Life

The men we met walked past, slow, unsmiling, with downcast eyes, as if the melancholy of a over-burdened earth had weighted their feet, bowed their shoulders, borne down their glances By Joseph Conrad Slow Unsmiling Past Eyes Feet

It's extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it's just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome. By Joseph Conrad Shut Ears Thoughts Life Extraordinary

It is before you - smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, 'Come and find out.' This one was almost featureless, as if still in the By Joseph Conrad Smiling Frowning Inviting Grand Insipid

Sometimes it takes all my resolution and power of self-control to refrain from butting my head against the wall. I want to howl and foam at the mouth but I daren't. By Joseph Conrad Wall Resolution Power Selfcontrol Refrain

You take a different view of your actions when you come to understand, when you are made to understand every day that your existence is necessary - you see, absolutely necessary - to another person. By Joseph Conrad Understand Absolutely Person View Actions

We live as we dream--alone.... By Joseph Conrad Dream Live

These little things make all the great difference. When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. Of course you may be too much of a fool to go wrongtoo dull even to know you are being assaulted by the powers of darkness. I take it no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil. The fool is too much of a fool or the devil too much of a devilI don't know which. Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing placeand whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won't pretend to say. But most of us are neither one or the other. By Joseph Conrad Fool Difference Things Make Great

Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love - and to put it's trust in life! By Joseph Conrad Woe Hope Love Life Man

I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took council with this great solitude - and the whisper has proved irresistibly fascinating. By Joseph Conrad Things Solitude Fascinating Whispered Conception

Ah! These commercial interests spoiling the finest life under the sun. Why must the sea be used for trade and for war as well? ... It would have been so much nicer just to sail about, with here and there a port and a bit of land to stretch one's legs on, buy a few books and get a change of cooking for a while. By Joseph Conrad Sun Commercial Interests Spoiling Finest

The only legitimate basis of creative work lies in the courageous recognition of all the irreconcilable antagonisms that make our life so enigmatic, so burdensome, so fascinating, so dangerous - so full of hope. By Joseph Conrad Enigmatic Burdensome Fascinating Dangerous Hope

Facing the only gas-lamp yawned the cavern of a second-hand furniture dealer, where, deep in the gloom of a sort of narrow avenue winding through a bizarre forest of wardrobes, with an undergrowth tangle of table legs, a tall pier-glass glimmered like a pool of water in a wood. An unhappy, homeless couch, accompanied by two unrelated chairs, stood in the open. By Joseph Conrad Facing Dealer Deep Wardrobes Legs

I felt suddenly that 'this sort of thing' would kill me. The definition of the cause was vague, but the thought itself was no mere morbid artificiality of sentiment but a genuine conviction. 'That sort of thing' was what I would have to die from. It wouldn't be from the innumerable doubts. Any sort of certitude would be also deadly. It wouldn't be from a stab - a kiss would kill me as surely. It would not be from a frown or from any particular word or any particular act - but from having to bear them all, together and in succession - from having to live with 'that sort of thing.' About the time I finished with my neck-tie I had done with life too. By Joseph Conrad Thing Sort Felt Suddenly Kill

In the time of Spanish rule, and for many years afterwards, the town of Sulacothe luxuriant beauty of the orange gardens bears witness to its antiquityhad never been commercially anything more important than a coasting port with a fairly large local trade in ox-hides and indigo. By Joseph Conrad Spanish Sulacothe Rule Indigo Time

No influential friend would have served me better. She [the steamboat] had given me a chance to come out a bit-to find out what I could do. No, I don't like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don't like work-no man does-but I like what is in the work,-the chance to find yourself. Your own reality-for yourself, not for others-what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and can never tell what it really means. By Joseph Conrad Influential Friend Served Work Chance

We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, of an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toilo. But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend, there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling, under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us - who could tell? We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would before an enthousiastic outbreak in a madhouse. By Joseph Conrad Earth Planet Wanderers Wore Aspect

The horror! The horror! By Joseph Conrad Horror

But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself and, by heavens I tell you, it had gone mad. By Joseph Conrad Mad Soul Wilderness Looked Heavens

It was as though an animated image of death carved out of old ivory had been shaking its hand with menaces at a motionless crowd of men made of dark and glittering bronze. By Joseph Conrad Bronze Animated Image Death Carved

Mistah Kurtz--he dead. By Joseph Conrad Kurtz Mistah Dead

And for a moment it seemed to me as if I also were buried in a vast grave full of unspeakable secrets. By Joseph Conrad Secrets Moment Buried Vast Grave

The ocean has the conscienceless temper of a savage autocrat spoiled by much adulation By Joseph Conrad Adulation Ocean Conscienceless Temper Savage

It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose. By Joseph Conrad Mistakes Suppose Make

If you don't make mistakes, you don't make anything . By Joseph Conrad Make Mistakes

There is never any God in a country where men will not help themselves. By Joseph Conrad God Country Men

If anybody had ever struggled with a soul, I am the man By Joseph Conrad Soul Man Struggled

brooding over the upper reaches, became By Joseph Conrad Brooding Reaches Upper

He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. By Joseph Conrad Pilot Personified Resembled Seaman Trustworthiness

The world of finance is a mysterious world in which, incredible as the fact may appear, evaporation precedes liquidation. First the capital evaporates, and then the company goes into liquidation. These are very unnatural physics ... By Joseph Conrad World Liquidation Incredible Evaporation Finance

Any work aspiring to be art however humble should carry its justification in every line. By Joseph Conrad Line Work Aspiring Art Humble

For the great mass of mankind the only saving grace that is needed is steady fidelity to what is nearest to hand and heart in the short moment of each human effort. By Joseph Conrad Effort Great Mass Mankind Saving

It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core. By Joseph Conrad Core Echoed Loudly Hollow

I don't know the world, nor yet the people in it; I have been too solitary - I am too young to trust my own opinions. By Joseph Conrad World Solitary Opinions People Young

The true peace of God begins at any spot a thousand miles from the nearest land. By Joseph Conrad God Land True Peace Begins

Fiction is history, human history, or it is nothing. By Joseph Conrad History Fiction Human

You show them you have in you something that is really profitable, and then there will be no limits to the recognition of your ability, By Joseph Conrad Profitable Ability Show Limits Recognition

All this life, must be life, since it is so much like a dream. By Joseph Conrad Life Dream

The conquest of the earth is not a pretty thing. By Joseph Conrad Thing Conquest Earth Pretty

I was constantly watching myself, my secret self, as dependent on my actions as my own personality By Joseph Conrad Personality Constantly Watching Secret Dependent

One can't live with one's finger everlastingly on one's pulse. By Joseph Conrad Pulse Live Finger Everlastingly

The terrorist and the policeman both come from the same basket. By Joseph Conrad Basket Terrorist Policeman

In plucking the fruit of memory one runs the risk of spoiling its bloom, especially if it has got to be carried into the market. By Joseph Conrad Bloom Market Plucking Fruit Memory

It's a long time since God has done anything for the people. By Joseph Conrad God People Long Time

The danger, when not seen, has the imperfect vagueness of human thought. The fear grows shadowy; and Imagination, the enemy of men, the father of all terrors, unstimulated, sinks to rest in the dullness of exhausted emotion. By Joseph Conrad Danger Thought Imperfect Vagueness Human

All idealisation makes life poorer. To beautify it is to take away its character of complexity - it is to destroy it. By Joseph Conrad Poorer Idealisation Makes Life Complexity

I suppose everybody must be always just a little homesick. By Joseph Conrad Homesick Suppose

We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there - there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were - No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it - this suspicion By Joseph Conrad Monster Free Accustomed Shackled Form

Most seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order ... In the immutability of their surroundings, the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; ... a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing. By Joseph Conrad Lead Seamen Express Sedentary Life

The East Wind, an interloper in the dominions of Westerly Weather, is an impassive-faced tyrant with a sharp poniard held behind his back for a treacherous stab. By Joseph Conrad Wind Weather East Westerly Stab

It was a wonderful experience. She mistrusted his very slumbersand she seemed to think I could tell her why! Thus a poor mortal seduced by the charm of an apparition might have tried to wring from another ghost the tremendous secret of the claim the other world holds over a disembodied soul astray amongst the passions of this earth. The very ground on which I stood seemed to melt under my feet. And it was so simple too; but if the spirits evoked by our fears and our unrest have ever to vouch for each other's constancy before the forlorn magicians that we are, then II alone of us dwellers in the fleshhave shuddered in the hopeless chill of such a task. By Joseph Conrad Experience Wonderful Mistrusted Slumbersand Earth

Of all the inanimate objects, of all men's creations, books are the nearest to us for they contain our very thoughts, our ambitions, our indignations, our illusions, our fidelity to the truth, and our persistent leanings to error. But most of all they resemble us in their precious hold on life. By Joseph Conrad Objects Creations Books Thoughts Ambitions

A woman's judgment: intuitive, clever, expressed with felicitous charm - infallible. A judgment that has nothing to do with justice. The critic and the judge seems to think that in those distant lands all joy is a yell and a war dance, all pathos is a howl and a ghastly grin of filed teeth, and that the solution of all problems is found in the barrel of a revolver or on the point of an assegai. And yet it is not so. But the erring magistrate may plead in excuse the misleading nature of the evidence. By Joseph Conrad Intuitive Clever Infallible Judgment Expressed

We want in so many different ways to be," he began again. "This magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it; but man he will never on his heap of mud keep still. He want to be so, and again he want to be so. . . . " He moved his hand up, then down. . . . "He wants to be a saint, and he wants to be a devil - and every time he shuts his eyes he sees himself as a very fine fellow - so fine as he can never be. . . . In a dream. . . . " 'He By Joseph Conrad Heap Began Fine Magnificent Butterfly

It is when we try to grapple with another man's intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun. It is as if loneliness were a hard and absolute condition of existence; the envelope of flesh and blood on which our eyes are fixed melts before the outstretched hand, and there remains only the capricious, unconsolable and elusive spirit that no eye can follow, no hand can grasp. By Joseph Conrad Incomprehensible Wavering Sun Grapple Man

The edge of a colossal jungle, so dark-green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight, like a ruled line, far, far away along a blue sea whose glitter was blurred by a creeping mist. By Joseph Conrad Jungle Black Fringed Surf Ran

It made you feel very small, very lost, and yet it was not altogether depressing, that feeling. After all, if you were small, the grimy beetle crawled on - which was just what you wanted it to do. By Joseph Conrad Small Lost Depressing Feeling Made

Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing place- whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won't pretend to say. By Joseph Conrad Sounds Thunderingly Exalted Creature Altogether

Some great men owe most of their greatness to the ability of detecting in those they destine for their tools the exact quality of strength that matters for their work. By Joseph Conrad Work Great Men Owe Greatness

Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time. By Joseph Conrad Time Fool Carry Wise Man

The mind of man is capable of anything. By Joseph Conrad Mind Man Capable

We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness By Joseph Conrad Darkness Deeper Penetrated Heart

I have been called romantic. Well, that can't be helped. But stay. I seem to remember that I have been called a realist also. And as that charge too can be made out, let us try to live up to it, at whatever cost, for a change. By Joseph Conrad Romantic Called Helped Stay Cost

There is, as every schoolboy knows in this scientific age, a very close chemical relation between coal and diamonds. It is the reason, I believe, why some people allude to coal as "black diamonds." Both these commodities represent wealth; but coal is a much less portable form of property. There is, from that point of view, a deplorable lack of concentration in coal. Now, if a coal-mine could be put into one's waistcoat pocket - but it can't! At the same time, there is a fascination in coal, the supreme commodity of the age in which we are camped like bewildered travellers in a garish, unrestful hotel. By Joseph Conrad Coal Diamonds Schoolboy Scientific Close

Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded By Joseph Conrad Thames Waterway Stretched Beginning Interminable

It was one of those dewy, clear, starry nights, oppressing our spirit, crushing our pride, by the brilliant evidence of the awful loneliness, of the hopeless obscure insignificance of our globe lost in the splendid revelation of a glittering, soulless universe. By Joseph Conrad Clear Dewy Starry Nights Oppressing

Being a lady is a frightfully troublesome assignment, since it comprises mainly in managing men. By Joseph Conrad Assignment Men Lady Frightfully Troublesome

I don't like workno man doesbut I like what is in the workthe chance to find yourself. Your own realityfor yourself not for otherswhat no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means. By Joseph Conrad Man Workno Doesbut Workthe Chance

He had found the secret of keeping for ever on the run the fundamental imbecility of mankind; he had the secret of life, that confounded dying man, and he made himself master of every moment of our existence. By Joseph Conrad Secret Mankind Life Man Existence

He inspired uneasiness. That was it! Uneasiness. Not a definite mistrust - just uneasiness - nothing more. You have no idea how effective such a ... a ... faculty can be. By Joseph Conrad Uneasiness Inspired Mistrust Faculty Definite

There's no worse enemy and no better friend than a brother, Tuan, for one brother knows another, and in perfect knowledge is strength for good or evil. By Joseph Conrad Tuan Evil Brother Worse Enemy

To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence. By Joseph Conrad Existence Path Made Clear Aspiration

Certain streets have an atmosphere of their own, a sort of universal fame and the particular affection of their citizens. One of such streets is the Cannebiere, and the jest: "If Paris had a Cannebiere, it would be a little Marseilles" is the jocular expression of municipal pride. I, too, I have been under the spell. For me it has been a street leading into the unknown. By Joseph Conrad Cannebiere Citizens Atmosphere Sort Universal

There is no credulity so eager and blind as the credulity of covetousness, which, in its universal extent, measures the moral misery and the intellectual destitution of mankind. By Joseph Conrad Credulity Covetousness Extent Measures Mankind

The islands are very quiet. One sees them lying about, clothed in their dark garments of leaves, in a great hush of silver and azure, where the sea without murmurs meets the sky in a ring of magic stillness. A sort of smiling somnolence broods over them; the very voices of their people are soft and subdued, as if afraid to break some protecting spell.Perhaps this was the very spell which had enchanted Heyst in the early days. By Joseph Conrad Quiet Islands Heyst Clothed Leaves

brain as a shadow passes away upon a white screen. She lives in the cottage and works for Miss Swaffer. She is Amy Foster for everybody, and the child is 'Amy Foster's boy.' She calls him Johnny - which means Little John. "It is impossible to say whether this name recalls anything to her. Does she ever think of the past? I have seen her hanging over the boy's cot in a By Joseph Conrad Amy Foster Brain Screen Swaffer

I thought his memory was like the other memories of the dead that accumulate in every man's life, - a vague impress on the brain of shadows that had fallen on it in their swift and final passage ... By Joseph Conrad Life Passage Thought Memory Memories

I remember my youth ... the feeling that I could last forever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men. By Joseph Conrad Youth Remember Forever Outlast Sea

Oh youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it! By Joseph Conrad Youth Strength Faith Imagination

The audacity of youth reckons upon what it fancies an unlimited time at its disposal; but a millionaire has unlimited means in his hand - which is better. One's time on earth is an uncertain quantity, but about the long reach of millions there is no doubt. By Joseph Conrad Unlimited Disposal Hand Time Audacity

You fight, work, sweat, nearly kill yourself, sometimes do kill yourself, trying to accomplish something - and you can't. Not from any fault of yours. You simply can do nothing, neither great nor little - not a thing in the world - not even marry an old maid, or get a wretched 600-ton cargo of coal to its port of destination. By Joseph Conrad Work Sweat Kill Fight Accomplish

O youth! The strenght of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it! ( ... ) I think of her with pleasure, with affection, with regret - as you would think of some one dead you have loved. I shall never forget her ... Pass the bottle. By Joseph Conrad Youth Strenght Faith Imagination Pleasure

But when one is young one must see things, gather experience, ideas; enlarge the mind. By Joseph Conrad Ideas Things Gather Experience Enlarge

All a man can betray is his conscience. By Joseph Conrad Conscience Man Betray

This mournful and restless sound was a fit accompaniment to my meditations. By Joseph Conrad Meditations Mournful Restless Sound Fit

The man up there raged aloud in two languages, and with a sincerity in his fury that almost convinced me I had, in some way, sinned against the harmony of the universe By Joseph Conrad Languages Sinned Universe Man Raged

I defy the ingenuity of journalists to persuade their public that any given member of the proletariat can have a personal grievance against astronomy. Starvation itself could hardly be dragged in there - eh? And there are other advantages. The whole civilized world has heard of Greenwich... Yes," he continued, with a contemptuous smile, "the blowing up of the first meridian is bound to raise a howl of execration. By Joseph Conrad Astronomy Defy Ingenuity Journalists Persuade

It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares. By Joseph Conrad Nightmares Weary Pilgrimage Hints

Analytical philosophy was very interesting. It always struck me as being very interesting and full of tremendous intellectual curiosities. It is wonderful to see the mind at work in such anintense manner, but, for me, it was still too far removed from my own issues. By Joseph Conrad Analytical Interesting Philosophy Curiosities Manner

You see we had on the whole liked him well enough. And liking is not sufficient to keep going the interest one takes in a human being. With hatred, apparently, it is otherwise. By Joseph Conrad Apparently Hatred Liking Sufficient Interest

A writing may be lost; a lie may be written; but what the eye has seen is truth and remains in the mind! By Joseph Conrad Lost Written Mind Writing Lie

The panes streamed with rain, and the short street he looked down into lay wet and empty, as if swept clear suddenly by a great flood. It was a very trying day, choked in raw fog to begin with, and now drowned in cold rain. The flickering, blurred flames of gas-lamps seemed to be dissolving in a watery atmosphere. And the lofty pretensions of a mankind oppressed by the miserable indignities of the weather appeared as a colossal and hopeless vanity deserving of scorn, wonder, and compassion. By Joseph Conrad Rain Empty Flood Panes Streamed

Government in general, any government anywhere, is a thing of exquisite comicality to a discerning mind. By Joseph Conrad General Mind Government Thing Exquisite

But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude--and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. ***Ah! but it was something to have at least a choice of nightmares.***...perhaps all the wisdom, and all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible. Perhaps! By Joseph Conrad Early Invasion Wilderness Found Terrible

There is no peace and no rest in the development of material interests. They have their law, and their justice. But it is founded on expediency, and is inhuman; it is without rectitude, without the continuity and the force that can be found only in a moral principle. By Joseph Conrad Interests Peace Rest Development Material

His very existence was improbable, inexplicable, and altogether bewildering. He was an insoluble problem. It was inconceivable how he had existed, how he had succeeded in getting so far, how he had managed to remain why he did not instantly disappear. By Joseph Conrad Inexplicable Improbable Bewildering Existence Altogether

The humblest craft that floats makes its appeal to a seaman by the faithfulness of her life. By Joseph Conrad Life Humblest Craft Floats Makes

Captain MacWhirr had sailed over the surface of the oceans assome men go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently intoa placid grave, ignorant of life to the last, without ever having beenmade to see all it may contain of perfidy, of violence, and of terror.There are on sea and land such men thus fortunate--or thus disdained bydestiny or by the sea. By Joseph Conrad Men Sea Captain Grave Ignorant

This was the unbounded power of eloquence - of words - of burning noble words. There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method. It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: Exterminate all the brutes! By Joseph Conrad Words Eloquence Unbounded Power Burning

Avoid irritation more than exposure to the sun ... In the tropics one must before everything keep calm.' ... By Joseph Conrad Avoid Sun Irritation Exposure Calm

I remember staying to look at it for a long time, as one would linger within reach of a consoling whisper. The sky was pearly grey. It was one of those overcast days so rare in the tropics, in which memories crowd upon one, memories of other shores, of other faces. By Joseph Conrad Time Whisper Remember Staying Long

It is universally understood that, as if it were nothing more substantial than vapor floating in the sky, every emotion of a woman is bound to end in a shower. By Joseph Conrad Sky Shower Universally Understood Substantial

This is why the attainment of proficiency, the pushing of your skill with attention to the most delicate shades of excellence, is a matter of vital concern. Efficiency of a practically flawless kind may be reached naturally in the struggle for bread. But there is something beyond - a higher point, a subtle and unmistakable touch of love and pride beyond mere skill; almost an inspiration which gives to all work that finish which is almost art - which is art. By Joseph Conrad Proficiency Excellence Concern Attainment Pushing

Your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. By Joseph Conrad Strength Accident Arising Weakness

I am a great foe of favoritism in public life, in private life, and even in the delicate relationship of an author to his works. By Joseph Conrad Life Works Great Foe Favoritism

The girl he had come across, of whom he had possessed himself, to whose presence he was not yet accustomed, with whom he did not yet know how to live; that human being so near and still so strange, gave him a greater sense of his own reality than he had ever known in all his life. By Joseph Conrad Accustomed Live Strange Gave Life

A Departure, the last professional sight of land, is always good, or at least good enough. For, even if the weather be thick, it does not matter much to a ship having all the open sea before her bows. By Joseph Conrad Departure Good Land Professional Sight

I saw him open his mouth wide ... as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him. By Joseph Conrad Wide Open Mouth Air Earth

this grimy fragment of another world, the forerunner of change, of conquest, of trade, of massacres, of blessings....the merry dance of death and trade goes on By Joseph Conrad Trade World Change Conquest Massacres

There is a kind way of assisting our fellow-creatures which is enough to break their hearts while it saves their outer envelope. By Joseph Conrad Envelope Kind Assisting Fellowcreatures Break

I have attempted to tear asunder the veil you have hung to conceal from us the pain of life, and I have been wounded by the mystery ... Oedipus, half way to finding the word of the enigma, young Faust, regretting already the simple life, the life of the heart, I come back to you repentant, reconciled, O gentle deceiver! By Joseph Conrad Life Mystery Attempted Tear Asunder

You will learn soon how not to be faint-hearted. A man has got to learn everythingand that's what so many of them youngsters don't understand. By Joseph Conrad Fainthearted Learn Understand Man Everythingand

The priests talk of consecrated ground! Bah! All the earth made by God is holy; but the sea, which knows nothing of kings and priests and tyrants, is the holiest of all. By Joseph Conrad Ground Talk Consecrated Priests Bah

Besides holding our hearts together through long periods of separation, it had the effect of making us tolerant of each other's yarnsand even convictions. By Joseph Conrad Separation Convictions Holding Hearts Long

A man's real life is that accorded to him in the thoughts of other men by reason of respect or natural love. By Joseph Conrad Love Man Real Life Accorded

Writing in English is like throwing mud at a wall. By Joseph Conrad English Writing Wall Throwing Mud

But the snags were thick, the water was treacherous and shallow, the boiler seemed indeed to have a sulky devil in it, and thus neither that fireman nor I had any time to peer into our creepy thoughts. By Joseph Conrad Thick Shallow Thoughts Snags Water

The fault of this country is the want of measure in political life. Flat acquiescence in illegality, followed by sanguinary reaction - that, senores, is not the way to a stable and prosperous future. By Joseph Conrad Life Fault Country Measure Political

The sea, perhaps because of its saltiness, roughens the outside but keeps sweet the kernel of its servants' soul. By Joseph Conrad Sea Saltiness Roughens Soul Sweet

There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery. By Joseph Conrad Moon Soul Mystery Haunting Light

It was a dark story. By Joseph Conrad Story Dark

It was not my strength that wanted nursing, it was my imagination that wanted soothing. By Joseph Conrad Wanted Nursing Soothing Strength Imagination

The good author is he who contemplates without marked joy or excessive sorrow the adventures of his soul amongst criticisms. By Joseph Conrad Criticisms Good Author Contemplates Marked

In a few moments all the stars came out above the intense blackness of the earth and the great lagoon gleaming suddenly with reflected lights resembled an oval patch of night sky flung down into the hopeless and abysmal night of the wilderness. By Joseph Conrad Night Wilderness Moments Stars Intense

Art is long and life is short, and success is very far off. By Joseph Conrad Art Short Long Life Success

Everything belonged to him. It made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst into prodigious peal of laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their places. By Joseph Conrad Belonged Places Made Hold Breath

He cast his eyes upwards and stood amazed. The snow had ceased to fall, and now, as if by a miracle, he saw above his head the clear black sky of the northern winter, decorated with the sumptuous fires of the stars. It was a canopy fit for the resplendent purity of the snows. By Joseph Conrad Amazed Cast Eyes Upwards Stood

What is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow-men's existence strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history. By Joseph Conrad History Conviction Fellowmen Existence Strong

All roads are long which lead to one's heart's desire. By Joseph Conrad Desire Roads Long Lead Heart

Jim's father possessed such certain knowledge of the Unknowable as made for the righteousness of people in cottages without disturbing the ease of mind of those whom an unerring Providence enables to live in mansions. By Joseph Conrad Unknowable Providence Jim Mansions Father

The calm was absolute, a dead, flat calm, the stillness of a dead sea and of a dead atmosphere. By Joseph Conrad Dead Absolute Flat Atmosphere Calm

Hang ideas! They are tramps, vagabonds, knocking at the back-door of your mind, each taking a little of your substance, each carrying away some crumb of that belief in a few simple notions you must cling to if you want to live decently and would like to die easy! By Joseph Conrad Hang Ideas Vagabonds Tramps Knocking

5: Social security will break small business, become a huge tax burden on our citizens, and bankrupt our country!1944: The G.I. Bill will break small business, become a huge tax burden on our citizens, and bankrupt our country!1965: Medicare will break small business, become a huge tax burden on our citizens, and bankrupt our country!1994: Health care will break small business, become a huge tax burden on our citizens, and bankrupt our country! By Joseph Conrad Business Citizens Country Break Small

You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends. By Joseph Conrad Friends Judge Man Foes

Curiosity being one of the forms of self-revelation, a systematically incurious person remains always partly mysterious. By Joseph Conrad Curiosity Selfrevelation Mysterious Forms Systematically

bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What By Joseph Conrad Bearers Fire Spark Sacred

Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. By Joseph Conrad Hunters Fame Stream Bearing Sword

The discovery of America was the occasion of the greatest outburst of cruelty and reckless greed known in history. By Joseph Conrad America History Discovery Occasion Greatest

Truth of a modest sort I can promise you, and also sincerity. That complete, praiseworthy sincerity which, while it delivers one into the hands of one's enemies, is as likely as not to embroil one with one's friends. By Joseph Conrad Truth Sincerity Modest Sort Promise

Light came out of this river since - you say Knights? Yes, but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker - may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! By Joseph Conrad Knights Light River Plain Clouds

All that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. By Joseph Conrad Forest Jungles Men Mysterious Life

For there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence ... By Joseph Conrad Existence Mysterious Seaman Sea Mistress

I don't think a single one of them had any clear idea of time, as we at the end of countless ages have. They still belonged to the beginnings of time - By Joseph Conrad Time Single Clear Idea End

To be busy with material affairs is the best preservative against reflection, fears, doubts ... all these things which stand in the way of achievement. I suppose a fellow proposing to cut his throat would experience a sort of relief while occupied in stropping his razor carefully. By Joseph Conrad Fears Doubts Reflection Busy Material

A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea. If he tries to climb out into the air as inexperienced people endeavor to do, he drowns. By Joseph Conrad Man Falls Sea Born Dream

No man engaged in a work he does not like can preserve many saving illusionsabout himself. The distaste, the absence of glamour, extend from the occupation to the personality. It is only when ourappointed activities seem by a lucky accident to obey the particular earnestness of our temperament that we can taste the comfort of complete self-deception. By Joseph Conrad Man Engaged Work Preserve Saving

Outside, the clear-cut strokes of the town clock counting By Joseph Conrad Counting Clearcut Strokes Town Clock

His mind, cool, alert, watched it sink there with a sort of vague concern at the absurdity of the occupation, till it rested at the bottom, deep down, where our unexpressed longings lie. By Joseph Conrad Cool Alert Mind Watched Occupation

...and the sound of her low voice seemed to have the accompaniment of all the other sounds, full of mystery, desolation, and sorrow, I had ever heard - the ripple of the river, the soughing of the trees swayed by the wind, the murmurs of the crowds, the faint ring of incomprehensible words cried from afar, the whisper of a voice speaking from beyond the threshhold of an eternal darkness. By Joseph Conrad Voice Desolation Full Mystery Sorrow

His face was like the autumn sky, overcast one moment and bright the next. By Joseph Conrad Sky Overcast Face Autumn Moment

Yes, the sound of water, the voice of the wind - completely foreign to human passions. All the other sounds of this earth brought contamination to the solitude of a soul. By Joseph Conrad Water Wind Completely Passions Voice

Some of the pilgrims behind the stretcher carried his arms - two shot-guns, a heavy rifle, and a light revolver-carbine - the thunderbolts of that pitiful Jupiter. By Joseph Conrad Jupiter Arms Shotguns Rifle Revolvercarbine