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Joseph Conrad Quotes | Quotes said by Joseph Conrad

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #1

    [The wilderness] had caressed him, and—lo!—he had withered; it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #2

    A certain simplicity of thought is common to serene souls at both ends of the social scale.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #3

    A estrada seria longa. Todas as estradas que levam ao que o nosso coração almeja são longas

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #4

    A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line...To snatch in a moment of courage, from the remorseless rush of time, a passing phase of life is only the beginning of the task. The task approached in tenderness and faith is to hold up unquestioningly, without choice and without fear, the rescued fragment before all eyes and in the light of a sincere mood. It is to show its vibration, its colour, its form; and through its movement, its form, and its colour, reveal the substance of its truth -- disclose its inspiring secret: the stress and passion within the core of each convincing moment. In a single-minded attempt of that kind, if one be deserving and fortunate, one may perchance attain to such clearness of sincerity that at last the presented vision of regret or pity, of terror or mirth, shall awaken in the hearts of the beholders that feeling of unavoidable solidarity; of the solidarity in mysterious origin, in toil, in joy, in hope, in uncertain fate, which binds men to each other and all mankind to the visible world.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #5

    A writing may be lost; a lie may be written; but what the eye has seen is truth and remains in the mind!

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #6

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

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #7

    All my moral and intellectual being is penetrated by an invincible conviction that whatever falls under the dominion of our senses must be in nature and, however exceptional, cannot differ in its essence from all the other effects of the visible and tangible world of which we are a self-conscious part. The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries as it is—marvels and mysteries acting upon our emotions and intelligence in ways so inexplicable that it would almost justify the conception of life as an enchanted state. No, I am too firm in my consciousness of the marvelous to be ever fascinated by the mere supernatural which . . . is but a manufactured article, the fabrication of minds insensitive to the intimate delicacies of our relation to the dead and to the living, in their countless multitudes; a desecration of our tenderest memories; an outrage on our dignity.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #8

    And suddenly I rejoiced in the great security of the sea as compared with the unrest of the land, in my choice of that untempted life presenting no disquieting problems, invested with an elementary moral beauty by the absolute straightforwardness of its appeal and by the singleness of its purpose.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #9

    And this also, said Marlow suddenly, has been one of the dark places of the earth.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #10

    And yet I have known the sea too long to believe in its respect for decency. An elemental force is ruthlessly frank

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #11

    Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror--of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision--he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath:
    The horror! The horror!

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #12

    Are not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all our stammerings is of course our only and abiding intention?

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #13

    As a general rule, a reputation is built on manner as much as on achievement.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #14

    Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #15

    Beyond the fence the forest stood up spectrally in the moonlight, and through the dim stir, through the faint sounds of that lamentable courtyard, the silence of the land went home to one's very heart - its mystery, its greatness, the amazing reality of its concealed life.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #16

    But sometimes, by the deserving and the fortunate, even that task is accomplished. And when it is accomplished— behold!— all the truth of life is there: a moment of vision, a sigh, a smile— and the return to an eternal rest.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #17

    But the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition— and, therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation— and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all humanity— the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #18

    But when one is young one must see things, gather experience, ideas; enlarge the mind.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #19

    By heavens! there is something after all in the world allowing one man to steal a horse while another must not look at a halter. Steal a horse straight out. Very well. He has done it. Perhaps he can ride. But there is a way of looking at a halter that would provoke the most charitable of saints into a kick.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #20

    Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream--making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is the very essence of dreams...

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #21

    Droll thing life is -- that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself -- that comes too late -- a crop of inextinguishable regrets.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #22

    Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #23

    Even extreme grief may ultimately vent
    itself in violence--but more generally takes the form of apathy

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #24

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

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #25

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

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #26

    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.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #27

    Fiction, at the point of development at which it has arrived, demands from the writer a spirit of scrupulous abnegation.The only legitimate of all the irreconcilable antagonisms that make our life so enigmatic, so burdensome, so fascinating, so dangerous--so full of hope. They exist! And this is the only fundamental truth of fiction.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #28

    For you need imagination to form a notion of beauty at all, and still more to discover your ideal in an unfamiliar shape.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #29

    Going home must be like going to render an account.

  • Joseph Conrad Quote #30

    Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overschadowed distances. [...] And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace. It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you with a vengeful aspect.

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