Quotes from Joseph Conrad

This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak—the sea entering into the life of most men, and the men knowing something or everything about the sea, in the way of amusement, of travel, or of bread-winning.

oh youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it!

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.

Men who come out here should have no entrails.

Semua ambisi itu sah, kecuali yang dicapai dengan menyengsarakan dan menginjak-injak kepercayaan orang lain.

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. But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend, there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs

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.

That man seems to have a particular talent for being on the spot whenever there is something picturesque to be done.

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.

doomed to be the recipient of confidences...

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.

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.

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

We have lost the first of the ebb, said the Director, suddenly. I raised my head. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky—seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.

But what I felt most was my being a stranger to the ship; and if all the truth must be told, I was somewhat of a stranger to myself.

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.

But sometimes, by the deserving and the fortunate, even that task is accomplished. And when it is accomplished— behold!— all the truth of life is there: a moment of vision, a sigh, a smile— and the return to an eternal rest.

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.

We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet.

Conrad's distrust of democracy sprang from his doubts whether the propagation of democracy as an aim in itself could solve any problems. He thought that, in view of the weakness of human nature and of the criminal character of society, democracy offered boundless opportunities for demagogues and charlatans

The true Razumov had his being in the willed, in the determined future—in that future menaced by the lawlessness of autocracy—for autocracy knows no law—and the lawlessness of revolution.

Eran conquistadores, y eso lo único que requiere es fuerza bruta, nada de lo que pueda uno vanagloriarse cuando se posee, ya que la fuerza no es sino una casualidad nacida de la debilidad de los otros.

I had gone so far that I don´t know how I'll ever get back.

And when it is accomplished—behold!—all the truth of life is there: a moment of vision, a sigh, a smile—and the return to an eternal rest.