Joseph Conrad Quotes
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Conrad placed on the title page an epigraph taken from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene: "Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please" This also became Conrad's epitaph.
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The air of the New World seems favorable to the art of declamation.
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There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.
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A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.
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It occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility.
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If you don't make mistakes, you don't make anything .
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He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is detestable. And it has a fascination, too, which goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination--you know.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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We couldn't understand because we were too far... and could not remember because we were traveling in the night of first ages, those ages that had gone, leaving hardly a sign... and no memories.
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Violence is not a catalyst but a diversion.
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A task, any task, undertaken in an adventurous spirit acquires the merit of romance.
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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!
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To be a great autocrat you must be a great barbarian.
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The mind of man is capable of anything.
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There is 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.
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It is a maudlin and indecent verity that comes out through the strength of wine.
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The humblest craft that floats makes its appeal to a seaman by the faithfulness of her life.
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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.
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There is a kind way of assisting our fellow-creatures which is enough to break their hearts while it saves their outer envelope.
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We live in the flicker -- may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday.
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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!
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A man's real life is that accorded to him in the thoughts of other men by reason of respect or natural love.
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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.
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The conquest of the earth... is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only... not a sentimental pretence but an idea.
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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.
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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.
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As a general rule, a reputation is built on manner as much as on achievement.
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