Quotes from Joseph Conrad

La voz de las olas de vez en cuando era un verdadero placer, como la conversación de un hermano. Era algo natural, que tenía su razón, que tenía su significado.

Vivimos igual que soñamos: solos.

Abandoned workings had for him strong fascination. Their desolation appealed to him like the sight of human misery, whose causes are varied and profound. They might have been worthless, but also they night have been misunderstood

But Jim did not know the almost inconceivable egotism of the man which made him, when resisted and foiled in his will, mad with the indignant and revengeful rage of a thwarted autocrat.

In a dispassionate view the ardour for reform, improvement for virtue, for knowledge, and even beauty is only a vein sticking up for appearances as though one were anxious about the cut of ones clothes in a community of blind men.

He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.

undemonstrative in a burly fat-pig style

There's no worse enemy and no better friend than a brother, Tuan, for one brother knows another, and in perfect knowledge is strength for good or evil.

I was made to look at the convention that lurks in all truth and on the essential sincerity of falsehood.

Conocen ustedes la maldad de la inanición prolongada, su tormento desesperante, sus pensamientos oscuros, su ferocidad sombría y meditabunda

The tide of darkness flowed on swiftly; and with tropical suddenness a swarm of stars came out above the shadowy earth, while I lingered yet, my hand resting lightly on my ship's rail as if on the shoulder of a trusted friend.

The most precise of her sayings seemed always to me to have enigmatical prolongations vanishing somewhere beyond my reach. I am reduced to suppose that she appreciated my attention and my silence. The attention she could see was quite sincere, so that the silence could not be suspected of coldness. It seemed to satisfy her. And it is to be noted that if she confided in me it was clearly not with the expectation of receiving advice, for which, indeed, she never asked.

Our common fate fastens upon the women with a peculiar cruelty. It does not punish like a master, but inflicts lingering torment, as if to gratify a secret, unappeasable spite. One would think that, appointed to rule on earth, it seeks to revenge itself upon the beings that come nearest to rising above the trammels of earthly caution; for it is only women who manage to put at times into their love an element just palpable enough to give one a fright — an extra-terrestrial touch.

Night, the inevitable reward of men's faithful labors on this earth ...

There is death in the folds of her skirt and blood about her feet. She is for no man.

At such times his thoughts would be full of valorous deeds: he loved these dreams and the success of his imaginary achievements.

Wilful murder?' says he in his quiet way. 'What the deuce is that? What are you talking about? People do get killed sometimes when they get in one's way, but that's self-defence—you understand?

Youth is insolent; it is its right—its necessity; it has got to assert itself, and all assertion in this world of doubts is a defiance, is an insolence. He

Some great men owe most of their greatness to the ability of detecting in those they destine for their tools the exact quality of strength that matters for their work, and Brown, as though he had been really great, had a satanic gift of finding out the best and the weakest spot in his victims.

Naive Heyst! As if anybody would . . . Nobody amongst us had any interest in men who went home. They were all right; they did not count any more. Going to Europe was nearly as final as going to Heaven. It removed

Haven´t you heard of the duel going on ever since 1801? - The Duel

The epigrammatic saying that speech has been given to us for the purpose of concealing our thoughts came into his mind.

The common misery of destitution would have made a bitter mockery of a marked insistence on social differences. Gaspar

Good gracious!