Joseph Conrad Quotes:
Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.
Joseph Conrad
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. – 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.
Joseph Conrad
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.
Joseph Conrad
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?
Joseph Conrad
It is to be remarked that a good many people are born curiously unfitted for the fate waiting them on this earth.
Joseph Conrad
Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men. – Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.
Joseph Conrad
Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.
Joseph Conrad
Perhaps life is just that… a dream and a fear. – Perhaps life is just that… a dream and a fear.
Joseph Conrad
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.
Joseph Conrad
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.
Joseph Conrad
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.
Joseph Conrad
Facing it, always facing it, that’s the way to get through. Face it. – Facing it, always facing it, that’s the way to get through. Face it.
Joseph Conrad
A modern fleet of ships does not so much make use of the sea as exploit a highway.
Joseph Conrad
A caricature is putting the face of a joke on the body of a truth.
Joseph Conrad
It is respectable to have no illusions, and safe, and profitable and dull.
Joseph Conrad
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.
Joseph Conrad
It is not the clear-sighted who rule the world. Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm fog.
Joseph Conrad
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.
Joseph Conrad
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
Joseph Conrad