Quotes from Joseph Conrad

outside, the clear-cut strokes of the town clock counting

His picturesque and filthy loquacity flowed like a troubled stream from a poisoned source.

Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a centre for trade of course, but also for humanizing, improving, instructing.

Anything—anything can be done in this country. That's what I say; nobody here, you understand, here, can endanger your position. And why? You stand the climate — you outlast them all.

It looked like a high-handed proceeding; but it was really a case of legitimate self-defense. You can't breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence.

We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was very quiet there.

The audacity of youth reckons upon what it fancies an unlimited time at its disposal; but a millionaire has unlimited means in his hand—which is better. One's time on earth is an uncertain quantity, but about the long reach of millions there is no doubt.

Two women, one fat and the other slim, sat on straw-bottomed chairs, knitting black wool. The slim one got up and walked straight at me—still knitting with downcast eyes—and only just as I began to think of getting out of her way, as you would for a somnambulist, stood still, and looked up. Her dress was as plain as an umbrella-cover, and she turned round without a word and preceded me into a waiting-room.

The sun was low; and leaning forward side by side, they seemed to be tugging painfully uphill their two ridiculous shadows of unequal length, that trailed behind them slowly over the tall grass without bending a single blade.

The world rests upon the poor . . . .

Sometimes he was contemptibly childish. He desired to have kings meet him at railway-stations on his return from some ghastly Nowhere, where he intended to accomplish great things.

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. . .

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.

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.

You will learn soon how not to be faint-hearted. A man has got to learn everything--and that's what so many of them youngsters don't understand.

I observed with assumed innocence that no man was safe from trouble in this world.

The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his gifts the one that stood out pre-eminently, that carried with it a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words—the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of an impenetrable darkness. The

Kummallista, miten naisilta puuttuu kosketus totuuteen. He elävät omassa maailmassaan, jonka kaltaista ei ole koskaan ollut eikä voi koskaan tulla. Se on kerta kaikkiaan liian kaunis, ja jos he sellaisen saisivat pannuksi pystyyn, se menisi pirstaleiksi ennen ensimmäistä päivänlaskua. Jokin kirottu tosiasia, jonka kanssa me miehet olemme luomisen päivästä asti eläneet kaikessa sovussa, ponkaisisi pystyyn ja kaataisi koko kapistuksen.

Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is always with them—the ship;

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.

The danger, when not seen, has the imperfect vagueness of human thought. The fear grows shadowy; and Imagination, the enemy of men, the father of all terrors, unstimulated, sinks to rest in the dullness of exhausted emotion.

arrested me, and he stood by civilly, holding a half-pint champagne bottle (medical comforts) with the candle stuck in it. To my question he said Mr. Kurtz had painted this—in this very station more than a year ago—while waiting for means to go to his trading-post. 'Tell me, pray,' said I, 'who is this Mr. Kurtz?

They grabbed what they could get and for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind - as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter nose than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it

Fu qualcosa di formidabile e di subitaneo, come l'improvviso rompersi di un vaso colmo d'ira.