Joseph Conrad

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.

Who knows what true loneliness is not the conventional word but the naked terror To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion.

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.

They talk of a man betraying his country his friends his sweetheart. There must be a moral bond first. All a man can betray is his conscience.

There are men here and there to whom the whole of life is like an after-dinner hour with a cigar; easy, pleasant, empty, perhaps enlivened by some fable of strife to be forgotten - before the end is told - even if there happens to be any end to it.

An artist is a man of action, whether he creates a personality, invents an expedient, or finds the issue of a complicated situation.

It is a maudlin and indecent verity that comes out through the strength of wine.

Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love - and to put its trust in life.

To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.

Any fool can carry on but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time.

Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it.

Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.

Facing it always facing it thats the way to get through. Face it.

Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory.

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.

A man's most open actions have a secret side to them.

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.

Going home must be like going to render an account.

Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.

You perceive the force of a word. He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense... Give me the right word and the right accent and I will move the world.

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.

The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth.

Criticism, that fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters.

A man's real life is that accorded to him in the thoughts of other men by reason of respect or natural love.

Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.

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.

Nations it may be have fashioned their Governments, but the Governments have paid them back in the same coin.

I take it that what all men are really after is some form or perhaps only some formula of peace.

This magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it but man will never on his heap of mud keep still...

Gossip is what no one claims to like but everybody enjoys.

Who knows what true loneliness is - not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion.

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.

In order to move others deeply we must deliberately allow ourselves to be carried away beyond the bounds of our normal sensibility.

Madness alone is truly terrifying, inasmuch as you cannot placate it by threats, persuasion, or bribes.

As to honor - you know - it's a very fine mediaeval inheritance which women never got hold of. It wasn't theirs.

This magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it; but man will never on his heap of mud keep still.

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.

It is to be remarked that a good many people are born curiously unfitted for the fate waiting them on this earth.

I don't like work... but I like what is in work - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - which no other man can ever know.

The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.

A word carries far, very far, deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space.

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.

Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.

Violence is not a catalyst but a diversion.

Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everybody enjoys.

Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time.

As a general rule, a reputation is built on manner as much as on achievement.

He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.

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 ones very heart its mystery its greatness the amazing reality of its concealed life.

They talk of a man betraying his country, his friends, his sweetheart. There must be a moral bond first. All a man can betray is his conscience.

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.

A modern fleet of ships does not so much make use of the sea as exploit a highway.

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.

All a man can betray is his conscience.

It is not the clear-sighted who rule the world. Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm fog.

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.

As in political so in literary action a man wins friends for himself mostly by the passion of his prejudices and the consistent narrowness of his outlook.

It is respectable to have no illusions, and safe, and profitable and dull.

Perhaps life is just that... a dream and a fear.

For all that has been said of the love that certain natures (on shore) have professed for it, for all the celebrations it has been the object of in prose and song, the sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.

Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life its strength and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.

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.

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.

How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a specter through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its spectral throat?

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary men alone are quite capable of every wickedness

I had ambition not only to go farther than any man had ever been before, but as far as it was possible for a man to go.

A caricature is putting the face of a joke on the body of a truth.

Don't you forget what's divine in the Russian soul and that's resignation.

Only in men's imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.

It was not my strength that wanted nursing, it was my imagination that wanted soothing.

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 atmosphere of tepid scepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary.

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.

You can't, in sound morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It is his clear duty.

Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.

There is nothing more enticing disenchanting and enslaving than the life at sea.

Protection is the first necessity of opulence and luxury.

There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.

All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.

Being a woman is a terribly difficult task since it consists principally in dealing with men.

A belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.

You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends.