Quotes from Joseph Conrad

The true peace of God begins at any spot a thousand miles from the nearest land.

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.

I am afraid that if you want to go down into history you'll have to do something for it.

The discovery of America was the occasion of the greatest outburst of cruelty and reckless greed known in history.

Going home must be like going to render an account.

The atmosphere of officialdom would kill anything that breathes the air of human endeavour, would extinguish hope and fear alike in the supremacy of paper and ink.

I can't imagine a human being so hard up for something to do as to quarrel with me.

The question is not how to get cured, but how to live.

Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time.

Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end.

the mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as the future

Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it.

No man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge.

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.

There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.

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!

Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.

We live as we dream - alone. While the dream disappears, the life continues painfully.

All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.

The humblest craft that floats makes its appeal to a seaman by the faithfulness of her life.

Perhaps life is just that... a dream and a fear.

Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings.

Only in men's imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.

It is respectable to have no illusions, and safe, and profitable and dull.