Quotes from Joseph Conrad

If you want to know the age of the Earth—look upon the sea in a storm. But what storm can fully reveal the heart of a man? Between Suez and the China Sea are many nameless men who prefer to live and die unknown. This is the story of one such man. Among the great gallery of rogues and heroes thrown up on the beaches and ports—no man was more respected or more damned than—Lord Jim.

It was only after I had finished writing the first part that the whole story revealed itself to me in its tragic character and in the march of its events as unavoidable and sufficiently ample in its outline to give free play to my creative instinct and to the dramatic possibilities of the subject

My bones were buried by Octavian. I am Virgilius; and for no crime else Did I lose heaven, than for not having faith;

The breeze was so faint that it was a smile, not a sigh.

Thou'rt wise, and knowest better than I speak. And as he is, who unwills what he willed, And by new thoughts doth his intention change, So that from his design he quite withdraws

Both these white men looked on native life as a mere play of shadows. A play of shadows the dominant race could walk through unaffected and disregarded in the pursuit of its incomprehensible aims and needs.

not by gunpowder but by those who invented it would matters be settled.

To the unblushing womankind of Florence To go about displaying breast and paps.

There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination--you know. Imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate.

A diplomatic statement, Lena, is a statement of which everything is true but the sentiment which seems to prompt it.

That's how she was. You could never be sure what she would be up to next. There are ships difficult to handle, but generally you can depend on them behaving rationally. With that ship, whatever you did with her you never knew how it would end. She was a wicked beast. Or, perhaps, she was only just insane.

my taste is for freedom, and I have no relish for constraint; I neither love nor hate anyone; I do not deceive this one or court that, or trifle with one or play with another. The modest converse of the shepherd girls of these hamlets and the care of my goats are my recreations; my desires are bounded by these mountains, and if they ever wander hence it is to contemplate the beauty of the heavens, steps by which the soul travels to its primeval abode.

As to honor - you know - it's a very fine mediaeval inheritance which women never got hold of. It wasn't theirs.

Youth that is fresh enough to believe in guilt, in innocence, and in itself, will always doubt whether it have not perchance deserved its fate.

In her view the aim of every religion was merely to preserve certain proprieties while affording satisfaction to human desires

La strada sarebbe stata lunga. Tutte le strade che portano dove il cuore desidera sono lunghe. Ma questa strada l'occhio della mia mente poteva vederla su una carta, professionalmente, con tutte le difficoltà e complicazioni tecniche. In fondo tutto si riduceva a questo. O si é marinai o non lo si é. Ed io dubitavo di non esserlo.

Napoleon's historian Thiers, like other of his historians, trying to justify his hero says that he was drawn to the walls of Moscow against his will. He is as right as other historians who look for the explanation of historic events in the will of one man; he is as right as the Russian historians who maintain that Napoleon was drawn to Moscow by the skill of

Eres hermosa— le susurró. Ella observó de nuevo con esa mirada que se hace con un rápido parpadeo su rostro tostado por el sol, sus anchos hombros, su porte, su figura alta, inmóvil, que estaba a sus pies. Luego sonrió. En la sombría belleza de su rostro esa sonrisa era como el primer rayo de luz en una noche de tormenta, como una flecha fugaz y clara entre nubes sombrías, anunciadora del amanecer y del trueno.

The snake had charmed me

He judged it necessary to inform me he feared neither God nor devil, let alone any mere man.

If I went out with a couple of rifles and a gun bearer, and twenty or thirty beaters, to hunt a lion, I should not feel that the lion had much chance, and so the pleasure of the hunt would be lessened in proportion to the increased safety which I felt.

a character exposed to those strongest of all influences: the intrigues, flattery, and self-deception inseparable from power;

we must inevitably assume that the historian who judges Alexander will also after the lapse of some time turn out to be mistaken in his view of what is good for humanity.

The time was the beginning of the morning, And up the sun was mounting with those stars