Quotes from Joseph Conrad

As in political, so in literary action, a man wins friends for himself mostly by the passion of his prejudices.

To be busy with material affairs is the best preservative against reflection, fears, doubts ... all these things which stand in the way of achievement. I suppose a fellow proposing to cut his throat would experience a sort of relief while occupied in stropping his razor carefully.

Happiness, happiness ... the flavor is with you-with you alone, and you can make it as intoxicating as you please.

It is when we try to grapple with another man's intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun.

Caricature: putting the face of a joke upon the body of a truth.

Sometimes it takes all my resolution and power of self-control to refrain from butting my head against the wall. I want to howl and foam at the mouth but I daren't.

For all that has been said of the love that certain natures (on shore) have professed for it, for all the celebrations it has been the object of in prose and song, the sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.

Don't you forget what's divine in the Russian soul and that's resignation.

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.

Who knows what true loneliness is - not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion.

To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.

Felicity, felicity ... is quaffed out of a golden cup ... the flavour is with you alone, and you can make it as intoxicating as you please.

To be busy with material affairs is the best preservative against reflection, fears, doubts.... I suppose a fellow proposing to cut his throat would experience a sort of relief while occupied in stropping his razor carefully.

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

Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory.

The sea - the 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.

I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more - the feeling that I could last forever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men.

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.

You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends.

It is the mark of an inexperienced man not to believe in luck.

You can't, in sound morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It is his clear duty.

It is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self knowledge.

The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil water-way leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky — seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.

The last thing a woman will consent to in a man whom she loves, or on whom she simply depends, is want of courage.