Top 100 Joseph Conrad Quotes
#1. Was on the point of crying at her, 'Don't you hear them?' The dusk was repeating them in a persistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed to swell menacingly like the
Joseph Conrad
#2. Is there a spot on earth where such a man is unknown, an ominous survival testifying to the eternal fitness of lies and impudence?
Joseph Conrad
#3. Like a flash of lightning between the clouds, we live in the flicker.
Joseph Conrad
#4. Yet, when one thinks of it, diplomacy without force is a but a rotten reed to lean upon.
Joseph Conrad
#5. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#6. All this happened in much less time than it takes to tell, since I am trying to interpret for you into slow speech the instantaneous effect of visual impressions.
Joseph Conrad
#7. Leading questions as to my acquaintances in the sepulchral city, and so on. His little eyes glittered
Joseph Conrad
#8. There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.
Joseph Conrad
#9. There can be no life without faith and love - faith in a human heart, love of a human being! That
Joseph Conrad
#10. If anybody had ever struggled with a soul, I am the man
Joseph Conrad
#11. We had approached nearer to absolute Truth, which, like Beauty itself, floats elusive, obscure, half submerged, in the silent still waters of mystery.
Joseph Conrad
#12. The vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience.
Joseph Conrad
#13. Thinking is the great enemy of perfection. The habit of profound reflection, I am compelled to say, is the most pernicious of all the habits formed by the civilized man.
Joseph Conrad
#14. The practical value of succes depends not a little on the way you look at it.
Joseph Conrad
#15. Don't you know what the police are for, Stevie? They are there so that them as have nothing shouldn't take anything away from them who have.
Joseph Conrad
#16. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#17. He existed for me, and after all it is only through me that he exists for you.
Joseph Conrad
#19. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#20. Mr Verloc was going westward through a town without shadows in an atmosphere of powdered old gold
Joseph Conrad
#21. 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 an
intense manner, but, for me, it was still too far removed from my own issues.
Joseph Conrad
#22. Admiration was a sentiment unknown to her - first, as always more or less tainted with mediocrity, and next, as being in a way an admission of inferiority. And both were frankly inconceivable to her nature.
Joseph Conrad
#23. One must not make too much of anything in life, good or bad.
Joseph Conrad
#24. I saw only the reality of his destiny, which he had known
how to follow with unfaltering footsteps, that life begun in humble
surroundings, rich in generous enthusiasms, in friendship, love, war
in
all the exalted elements of romance.
Joseph Conrad
#25. Smoke came out of the cliff, and that was all. No change appeared on the face of the rock. They were building a railway. The cliff was not
Joseph Conrad
#26. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#27. One writes only half the book; the other half is with the reader.
Joseph Conrad
#28. Everything belonged to him
but that was a trifle. The thing to know was what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own.
Joseph Conrad
#29. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#30. 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]
Joseph Conrad
#31. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#32. I sit down religiously every morning, I sit down for eight hours every day - and the sitting down is all.
Joseph Conrad
#33. The men, the women, the children; the old with the young, the decrepit with the lusty - all equal before sleep, death's brother.
Joseph Conrad
#34. It was only after a long silence, when he said, in a hesitating voice, "I suppose you fellows remember I did once turn fresh-water sailor for a bit," that we knew we were fated, before the ebb began to run, to hear about one of Marlow's inconclusive experiences.
Joseph Conrad
#35. There is never any God in a country where men will not help themselves.
Joseph Conrad
#36. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#37. The gift of heaven is in the hands of every man. But
Joseph Conrad
#38. Who would care to question the ground of forgiveness or compassion.
Joseph Conrad
#39. Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it.
Joseph Conrad
#40. It's a long time since God has done anything for the people.
Joseph Conrad
#41. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#42. Criticism, that fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters.
Joseph Conrad
#43. In life, you see, there is not much choice. You have either to rot or to burn. And there is not one of us, painted or unpainted, that would not rather burn than rot.
Joseph Conrad
#44. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#45. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#46. The weakness of many tellers of tales who seem so often unaware of what their audience would best like to hear;
Joseph Conrad
#47. All that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men.
Joseph Conrad
#48. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#49. above - the Council in Europe, you know - mean him to be.' "He turned to
Joseph Conrad
#50. A horn tooted to the right, and I saw the black people run.
Joseph Conrad
#51. 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 ...
Joseph Conrad
#52. Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everybody enjoys.
Joseph Conrad
#53. The sea, perhaps because of its saltiness, roughens the outside but keeps sweet the kernel of its servants' soul.
Joseph Conrad
#54. 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
Joseph Conrad
#55. No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence
that which makes its truth, its meaning
its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream
alone.
Joseph Conrad
#57. It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.
Joseph Conrad
#58. To be a great autocrat you must be a great barbarian.
Joseph Conrad
#59. Don't you forget what's divine in the Russian soul and that's resignation.
Joseph Conrad
#60. Your strength is just an accident owed to the weakness of others.
Joseph Conrad
#61. It is respectable to have no illusions, and safe, and profitable and dull.
Joseph Conrad
#62. And a word carries far-very far-deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space.
Joseph Conrad
#63. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core.
Joseph Conrad
#64. (law is) the pretty branding instrument invented by the overfed to protect themselves against the hungry ?
Joseph Conrad
#65. I have a voice, too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced
Joseph Conrad
#66. And yet I have known the sea too long to believe in its respect for decency. An elemental force is ruthlessly frank
Joseph Conrad
#67. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#68. I am afraid that if you want to go down into history you'll have to do something for it.
Joseph Conrad
#69. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#70. Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness.
Joseph Conrad
#71. I had immense plans,' he irresolutely muttered.
Joseph Conrad
#72. Lights of ships moved in the fairway-a great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars.
Joseph Conrad
#73. The beauty of the loved woman exists in the beauties of Nature.
Joseph Conrad
#74. 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
Joseph Conrad
#75. A train of thought is never false. The falsehood lies deep in the necessities of existence.
Joseph Conrad
#76. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#77. A duel, whether regarded as a ceremony in the cult of honour, or even when reduced in its moral essence to a form of manly sport, demands a perfect singleness of intention, a homicidal austerity of mood. [The duel]
Joseph Conrad
#80. 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?
Joseph Conrad
#81. His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked at him as you peer down at a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines.
Joseph Conrad
#82. 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?
Joseph Conrad
#83. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#84. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#85. He was ruined in every way, but a man possessed of passion is not a bankrupt in life.
Joseph Conrad
#86. The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.
Joseph Conrad
#87. I do not know whether I have been a good seaman, but I know I have been a very faithful one.
Joseph Conrad
#88. I believe in children praying
well, women, too, but I rather think God expects men to be more self-reliant. I don't hold with a man everlastingly bothering the Almighty with his silly troubles.
Joseph Conrad
#89. All the pilgrims rushed out to see. I remained, and went on with my dinner. I believe I was considered brutally callous. However, I did not eat much.
Joseph Conrad
#90. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#92. A stone image shed a miraculous tear of compassion over the incertitudes of life and death ...
Joseph Conrad
#93. A nickname may be the best record of a success. That's what I call putting the face of a joke upon the body of a truth.
Joseph Conrad
#94. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#95. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#96. 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.
Joseph Conrad
#97. It is a maudlin and indecent verity that comes out through the strength of wine.
Joseph Conrad
#98. This mournful and restless sound was a fit accompaniment to my meditations.
Joseph Conrad
#99. An artist is a man of action, whether he creates a personality, invents an expedient, or finds the issue of a complicated situation.
Joseph Conrad
#100. 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
Joseph Conrad
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