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And Perhaps In This Is The Whole Difference; Perhaps All The Wisdom, And All Truth, And All Sincerity, Are Just Compressed Into That Inappreciable Moment Of Time In Which We Step Over The Threshold Of The Invisible.

-Joseph Conrad

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And Perhaps In This

Joseph Conrad

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And Perhaps In This Is The Whole Difference; Perhaps All The Wisdom, And All Truth, And All Sincerity, Are Just Compressed Into That Inappreciable Moment Of Time In Which We Step Over The Threshold Of The Invisible.

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Claiming That The Destructive Practice Of Mountaintop Removal Mining, Blowing The Tops Off Mountains To Get At The Coal Beneath, Performs The "necessary" Function Of Creating Flat Land For Development To Tear Treasure Out Of The Bowels Of The Land Was Their Desire, With No More Moral Purpose At The Back Of It Than There Is In Burglars Breaking Into A Safe.

What Makes Mankind Tragic Is Not That They Are The Victims Of Nature, It Is That They Are Conscious Of It.

The Sea Never Changes And Its Works, For All The Talks Of Men, Are Wrapped In Mystery.

To A Teacher Of Languages There Comes A Time When The World Is But A Place Of Many Words And Man Appears A Mere Talking Animal Not Much More Wonderful Than A Parrot.

I Take It That What All Men Are Really After Is Some Form Or Perhaps Only Some Formula Of Peace.

I Have Been Called Romantic. Well, That Can't Be Helped. But Stay. I Seem To Remember That I Have Been Called A Realist Also. And As That Charge Too Can Be Made Out, Let Us Try To Live Up To It, At Whatever Cost, For A Change.

Necessity, They Say, Is Mother Of Invention, But Fear, Too, Is Not Barren Of Ingenious Suggestions.

It Is A Maudlin And Indecent Verity That Comes Out Through The Strength Of Wine.

Words, As Is Well Known, Are The Great Foes Of Reality.

They Were Conquerors, And For That You Want Only Brute Force--nothing To Boast Of, When You Have It, Since Your Strength Is Just An Accident Arising From The Weakness Of Others.

The True Peace Of God Begins At Any Spot A Thousand Miles From The Nearest Land.

How Does One Kill Fear, I Wonder? How Do You Shoot A Specter Through The Heart, Slash Off Its Spectral Head, Take It By Its Spectral Throat?

He Struggled With Himself, Too. I Saw It -- I Heard It. I Saw The Inconceivable Mystery Of A Soul That Knew No Restraint, No Faith, And No Fear, Yet Struggling Blindly With Itself.

For A Bag Of Pepper, They Could Cut Each Other's Throats Without Hesitation, And Would Forswear Their Souls... The Bizarre Obstinacy Of That Desire Made Them Defy Death In A Thousand Shapes; The Unknown Seas, The Loathsome Diseases; Wounds, Captivity, Hunger, Pestilence And Despair. It Made Them Great! By Heavens! It Made Them Heroic; And It Made Them Pathetic, Too, In Their Craving For Trade With The Inflexible Death Levying Its Toll On Young And Old

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.

For The Great Mass Of Mankind The Only Saving Grace That Is Needed Is Steady Fidelity To What Is Nearest To Hand And Heart In The Short Moment Of Each Human Effort.

Mathematics Commands All My Respect, But I Have No Use For Engines.

He Hated All This, And Somehow He Couldn't Get Away.

You Shall Judge A Man By His Foes As Well As By His Friends.

When One Has Got To Make Correct Entries, One Comes To Hate Those Savages--hate Them To The Death.

I Remember My Youth And The Feeling That Will Never Come Back Any More /the Feeling That I Could Last For Ever, Outlast The Sea, The Earth, And All Men; The Deceitful Feeling That Lures Us On To Joys, To Perils, To Love, To Vain Effort /to Death; The Triumphant Conviction Of Strength, The Heat Of Life In The Handful Of Dust, The Glow In The Heart That With Every Year Grows Dim, Grows Cold, Grows Small, And Expires /and Expires, Too Soon, Too Soon /before Life Itself

I Can't Imagine A Human Being So Hard Up For Something To Do As To Quarrel With Me.

The Reaches Opened Before Us And Closed Behind, As If The Forest Had Stepped Leisurely Across The Water To Bar The Way For Our Return. We Penetrated Deeper And Deeper Into The Heart Of Darkness.

A Nickname May Be The Best Record Of A Success. That's What I Call Putting The Face Of A Joke Upon The Body Of A Truth.

All Ambitions Are Lawful Except Those Which Climb Upward On The Miseries Or Credulities Of Mankind. All Intellectual And Artistic Ambitions Are Permissible, Up To And Even Beyond The Limit Of Prudent Sanity. They Can Hurt No One.

I Have A Voice, Too, And For Good Or Evil Mine Is The Speech That Cannot Be Silenced

Books May Be Written In All Sorts Of Places. Verbal Inspiration May Enter The Berth Of A Mariner On Board A Ship Frozen Fast In A River In The Middle Of A Town.

We Live As We Dream - Alone. While The Dream Disappears, The Life Continues Painfully.

Being A Lady Is A Frightfully Troublesome Assignment, Since It Comprises Mainly In Managing Men.

I Let Him Run On, This Papier-maché Mephistopheles, And It Seemed To Me That If I Tried I Could Poke My Forefinger Through Him, And Would Find Nothing Inside But A Little Loose Dirt, Maybe.

Imagination, Not Invention, Is The Supreme Master Of Art As Of Life.

Fiction Is History, Human History, Or It Is Nothing.

Facing It, Always Facing It, That's The Way To Get Through. Face It.

Society Was Calling To Its Accomplished Child To Come, To Be Taken Care Of, To Be Instructed, To Be Judged, To Be Condemned; It Called Him To Return To That Rubbish Heap From Which He Had Wandered Away, So That Justice Could Be Done.

The Mind Of Man Is Capable Of Anything--because Everything Is In It, All The Past As Well As The Future

The Condemned Social Order Has Not Been Built Up On Paper And Ink, And I Don't Fancy That A Combination Of Paper And Ink Will Ever Put An End To It.

Reality, As Usual, Beats Fiction Out Of Sight.

The Ocean Has The Conscienceless Temper Of A Savage Autocrat Spoiled By Much Adulation

Everything Belonged To Him. It Made Me Hold My Breath In Expectation Of Hearing The Wilderness Burst Into Prodigious Peal Of Laughter That Would Shake The Fixed Stars In Their Places.

Any Work That Aspires, However Humbly, To The Condition Of Art Should Carry Its Justification In Every Line.

As In Political So In Literary Action A Man Wins Friends For Himself Mostly By The Passion Of His Prejudices And The Consistent Narrowness Of His Outlook.

I Like What Is In The Work -- The Chance To Find Yourself.

Finding Yourself

All Creative Art Is Magic, Is Evocation Of The Unseen In Forms Persuasive, Enlightening, Familiar And Surprising.

The Mind Of Man Is Capable Of Anything.

The Good Author Is He Who Contemplates Without Marked Joy Or Excessive Sorrow The Adventures Of His Soul Amongst Criticisms.

Conrad Placed On The Title Page An Epigraph Taken From Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene: "sleep After Toyle, Port After Stormie Seas, Ease After Warre, Death After Life, Does Greatly Please" This Also Became Conrad's Epitaph.

Egoism , Which Is The Moving Force Of The World, And Altruism , Which Is Its Morality , These Two Contradictory Instincts , Of Which One Is So Plain And The Other So Mysterious, Cannot Serve Us Unless In The Incomprehensible Alliance Of Their Irreconcilable Antagonism.

I Am Afraid That If You Want To Go Down Into History You'll Have To Do Something For It.

Hang Ideas! They Are Tramps, Vagabonds, Knocking At The Back-door Of Your Mind, Each Taking A Little Of Your Substance, Each Carrying Away Some Crumb Of That Belief In A Few Simple Notions You Must Cling To If You Want To Live Decently And Would Like To Die Easy!

The Westerly Wind Asserting His Sway From The South-west Quarter Is Often Like A Monarch Gone Mad, Driving Forth With Wild Imprecations The Most Faithful Of His Courtiers To Shipwreck, Disaster, And Death.

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!

They Talk Of A Man Betraying His Country, His Friends, His Sweetheart. There Must Be A Moral Bond First. All A Man Can Betray Is His Conscience.

Lights Of Ships Moved In The Fairway-a Great Stir Of Lights Going Up And Going Down. And Farther West On The Upper Reaches The Place Of The Monstrous Town Was Still Marked Ominously On The Sky, A Brooding Gloom In Sunshine, A Lurid Glare Under The Stars.

You Can T, In Sound Morals, Condemn A Man For Taking Care Of His Own Integrity. It Is His Clear Duty. And Least Of All Can You Condemn An Artist Pursuing, However Humbly And Imperfectly, A Creative Aim. In That Interior World Where His Thought And His Emotions Go Seeking For The Experience Of Imagined Adventures, There Are No Policemen, No Law, No Pressure Of Circumstance Or Dread Of Opinion To Keep Him Within Bounds. Who Then Is Going To Say Nay To His Temptations If Not His Conscience?

I Have Wrestled With Death. It Is The Most Unexciting Contest You Can Imagine. It Takes Place In An Impalpable Greyness, With Nothing Underfoot, With Nothing Around, Without Spectators, Without Clamour, Without Glory, Without The Great Desire Of Victory, Without The Great Fear Of Defeat, In A Sickly Atmostphere Of Tepid Scepticism, Without Much Belief In Your Own Right, And Still Less In That Of Your Adversary.

My Task Is To Make You Hear, Feel And See. That And No More, And That Is Everything.

The Humblest Craft That Floats Makes Its Appeal To A Seaman By The Faithfulness Of Her Life.

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. It Is As If Loneliness Were A Hard And Absolute Condition Of Existence; The Envelope Of Flesh And Blood On Which Our Eyes Are Fixed Melts Before The Outstretched Hand, And There Remains Only The Capricious, Unconsolable And Elusive Spirit That No Eye Can Follow, No Hand Can Grasp.

My Task Which I Am Trying To Achieve Is, By The Power Of The Written Word, To Make You Hear, To Make You Feel — It Is, Before All, To Make You See. That — And No More, And It Is Everything. If I Succeed, You Shall Find There According To Your Deserts: Encouragement, Consolation, Fear, Charm — All You Demand; And, Perhaps, Also That Glimpse Of Truth For Which You Have Forgotten To Ask.

The Sky Over Patusan Was Blood-red, Immense, Streaming Like An Open Vein. An Enormous Sun Nestled Crimson Amongst The Treetops, And The Forest Below Had A Black And Forbidding Face.

The Hair Of His Face, On The Contrary, Carroty And Flaming, Resembled A Growth Of Copper Wire Clipped Short To The Line Of The Lip; While, No Matter How Close He Shaved, Fiery Metallic Gleams Passed, When He Moved His Head, Over The Surface Of His Cheeks.

I Don't Like Work... But I Like What Is In Work - The Chance To Find Yourself. Your Own Reality - For Yourself, Not For Others - Which No Other Man Can Ever Know.

Everything Belonged To Him--but That Was A Trifle. The Thing To Know Was What He Belonged To, How Many Powers Of Darkness Claimed Him For Their Own.

Heart Of Darkness

One Ship Is Very Much Like Another And The Sea Is Always The Same. In The Immutability Of Their Surroundings The Foreign Shores, The Foreign Faces, The Changing Immensity Of Life, Glide Past, Veiled Not By A Sense Of Mystery But By A Slightly Disdainful Ignorance; For There Is Nothing Mysterious To A Seaman Unless It Be The Sea Itself, Which Is The Mistress Of His Existence And As Inscrutable As Destiny.

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.

The Air Of The New World Seems Favorable To The Art Of Declamation.

As A General Rule, A Reputation Is Built On Manner As Much As On Achievement.

A Man's Real Life Is That Accorded To Him In The Thoughts Of Other Men By Reason Of Respect Or Natural Love.

Woe To The Man Whose Heart Has Not Learned While Young To Hope, To Love - And To Put Its Trust In Life.

The Artist Appeals To That Part Of Our Being...which Is A Gift And Not An Acquisition - And, Therefore, More Permanently Enduring.

Sleep After Toyle, Port After Stormie Seas, Ease After Warre, Death After Life, Does Greatly Please.

It Is Very Difficult To Be Wholly Joyous Or Wholly Sad On This Earth. The Comic, When It Is Human, Soon Takes Upon Itself A Face Of Pain; And Some Of Our Griefs (some Only, Not All, For It Is The Capacity For Suffering Which Makes Man August In The Eyes Of Men) Have Their Source In Weaknesses Which Must Be Recognized With Smiling Com Passion As The Common Inheritance Of Us All.

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.

Nations It May Be Have Fashioned Their Governments, But The Governments Have Paid Them Back In The Same Coin.

It Made You Feel Very Small, Very Lost, And Yet It Was Not Altogether Depressing, That Feeling. After All, If You Were Small, The Grimy Beetle Crawled On - Which Was Just What You Wanted It To Do.

It Is Not The Clear-sighted Who Rule The World. Great Achievements Are Accomplished In A Blessed, Warm Fog.

I Remember My Youth And The Feeling That Will Never Come Back Any More

The Old River In Its Broad Reach Rested Unruffled At The Decline Of Day, After Ages Of Good Service Done To The Race That Peopled Its Banks, Spread Out In The Tranquil Dignity Of A Waterway Leading To The Uttermost Ends Of The Earth.

A Man That Is Born Falls Into A Dream Like A Man Who Falls Into The Sea. If He Tries To Climb Out Into The Air As Inexperienced People Endeavor To Do, He Drowns.

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 Too Much.

The Very Young Have, Properly Speaking, No Moments. It Is The Privilege Of Early Youth To Live In Advance Of Its Days In All The Beautiful Continuity Of Hope Which Knows No Pauses And No Introspection.

I Would Not Unduly Praise The Virtue Of Restraint. It Is Often Merely Temperamental. But It Is Not Always A Sign Of Coldness. It May Be Pride. There Can Be Nothing More Humiliating Than To See The Shaft Of One's Emotion Miss The Mark Of Either Laughter Or Tears. Nothing More Humiliating! And This For The Reason That Should The Mark Be Missed, Should The Open Display Of Emotion Fail To Move, Then It Must Perish Unavoidably In Disgust Or Contempt.

The Way Of Even The Most Jusitifiable Revolution Is Prepared By Personal Impulses Disguised Into Creeds.

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.

It Echoed Loudly Within Him Because He Was Hollow At The Core.

What Is A Novel If Not A Conviction Of Our Fellow Men's Existence Strong Enough To Take Upon Itself A Form Of Imagined Life Clearer Than Reality And Whose Accumulated Verisimilitude Of Selected Episodes Puts To Shame The Pride Of Documentary History.

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.

It Is The Mark Of An Inexperienced Man Not To Believe In Luck.

I Suppose Everybody Must Be Always Just A Little Homesick.

The Discovery Of America Was The Occasion Of The Greatest Outburst Of Cruelty And Reckless Greed Known In History.

Nowhere Else Than Upon The Sea Do The Days, Weeks, And Months Fall Away Quicker Into The Past. They Seem To Be Left Astern As Easily As The Light Air-bubbles In The Swirls Of The Ship's Wake.

In Order To Move Others Deeply We Must Deliberately Allow Ourselves To Be Carried Away Beyond The Bounds Of Our Normal Sensibility.

The World Of Finance Is A Mysterious World In Which, Incredible As The Fact May Appear, Evaporation Precedes Liquidation.

One Wonders That There Can Be Found A Man Courageous Enough To Occupy The Post. It Is A Matter Of Meditation. Having Given It A Few Minutes I Come To The Conclusion In The Serenity Of My Heart And The Peace Of My Conscience That He Must Be Either An Extreme Megalomaniac Or An Utterly Unconscious Being.

Danger Lies In The Writer Becoming The Victim Of His Own Exaggeration, Losing The Exact Notion Of Sincerity, And In The End Coming To Despise Truth Itself As Something Too Cold, Too Blunt For His Purpose -- As, In Fact, Not Good Enough For His Insistent Emotion. From Laughter And Tears The Descent Is Easy To Sniveling And Giggles.

Exaggeration Is

He Has To Live In The Midst Of The Incomprehensible, Which Is Also Detestable.

The Dreams Of Men, The Seed Of Commonwealth, The Germs Of Empires.

All Creative Art Is Magic , Is Evocation Of The Unseen In Forms Persuasive, Enlightening, Familiar And Surprising, For The Edification Of Mankind , Pinned Down By The Conditions Of Its Existence To The Earnest Consideration Of The Most Insignificant Tides Of Reality .

Happiness, Happiness ... The Flavor Is With You-with You Alone, And You Can Make It As Intoxicating As You Please.

Resignation, Not Mystic, Not Detached, But Resignation Open-eyed, Conscious, And Informed By Love, Is The Only One Of Our Feelings For Which It Is Impossible To Become A Sham.

His Very Existence Was Improbable, Inexplicable, And Altogether Bewildering. He Was An Insoluble Problem. It Was Inconceivable How He Had Existed, How He Had Succeeded In Getting So Far, How He Had Managed To Remain -- Why He Did Not Instantly Disappear.

All Roads Are Long Which Lead To One's Heart's Desire.

Kisses Are The Remnants Of Paradise.

A Train Of Thought Is Never False. The Falsehood Lies Deep In The Necessities Of Existence.

Train Of Thought

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.

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.

One Must Explore Deep And Believe The Incredible To Find The New Particles Of Truth Floating In An Ocean Of Insignificance.

Perhaps Life Is Just That... A Dream And A Fear.

A Word Carries Far, Very Far, Deals Destruction Through Time As The Bullets Go Flying Through Space.

But His Soul Was Mad. Being Alone In The Wilderness, It Had Looked Within Itself And, By Heavens I Tell You, It Had Gone Mad.

Everything Can Be Found At Sea According To The Spirit Of Your Quest.

Certain Streets Have An Atmosphere Of Their Own, A Sort Of Universal Fame And The Particular Affection Of Their Citizens. One Of Such Streets Is The Cannebiere, And The Jest: "if Paris Had A Cannebiere, It Would Be A Little Marseilles" Is The Jocular Expression Of Municipal Pride. I, Too, I Have Been Under The Spell. For Me It Has Been A Street Leading Into The Unknown.

For A Moment I Had A View Of A World That Seemed To Wear A Vast And Dismal Aspect Of Disorder, While, In Truth, Thanks To Our Unwearied Efforts, It Is As Sunny An Arrangement Of Small Conveniences As The Mind Of Man Can Conceive.

Do Not Talk To Me Of Archimedes' Lever. He Was An Absent-minded Person With A Mathematical Imagination. Mathematics Commands My Respect, But I Have No Use For Engines. Give Me The Right Word And The Right Accent And I Will Move The World.

God Is For Men, And Religion For Women.

The Belief In A Supernatural Source Of Evil Is Not Necessary; Men Alone Are Quite Capable Of Every Wickedness.

Madness Alone Is Truly Terrifying, Inasmuch As You Cannot Placate It By Threats, Persuasion, Or Bribes.

A Task, Any Task, Undertaken In An Adventurous Spirit Acquires The Merit Of Romance.

It Is Not Justice The Servant Of Men, But Accident, Hazard, Fortune-the Ally Of Patient Time-that Holds An Even And Scrupulous Balance.

Don't You Forget What's Divine In The Russian Soul And That's Resignation.

I Saw Him Open His Mouth Wide. . . As Though He Had Wanted To Swallow All The Air, All The Earth, All The Men Before Him.

5: Social Security Will Break Small Business, Become A Huge Tax Burden On Our Citizens, And Bankrupt Our Country! 1944: The G.i. Bill Will Break Small Business, Become A Huge Tax Burden On Our Citizens, And Bankrupt Our Country! 1965: Medicare Will Break Small Business, Become A Huge Tax Burden On Our Citizens, And Bankrupt Our Country! 1994: Health Care Will Break Small Business, Become A Huge Tax Burden On Our Citizens, And Bankrupt Our Country!

A Fool Has More Ideas Than A Wise Man Can Foresee.

I Couldn't Have Felt More Of Lonely Desolation Somehow, Had I Been Robbed Of A Belief Or Had Missed My Destiny In Life.

We Looked At The Venerable Stream Not In The Vivid Flush Of A Short Day That Comes And Departs Forever, But In The August Light Of Abiding Memories.

A Ship In Dock, Surrounded By Quays And The Walls Of Warehouses, Has The Appearance Of A Prisoner Meditating Upon Freedom In The Sadness Of A Free Spirit Put Under Restraint.

There Is Something Haunting In The Light Of The Moon; It Has All The Dispassionateness Of A Disembodied Soul, And Something Of Its Inconceivable Mystery.

You Must Squeeze Out Of Yourself Every Sensation, Every Thought, Every Image, - Mercilessly, Without Reserve And Without Remorse: You Must Search The Darkest Corners Of Your Heart, The Most Remote Recesses Of Your Brain, - You Must Search Them For The Image, For The Glamour, For The Right Expression. And You Must Do It Sincerely, At Any Cost: You Must Do It So That At The End Of Your Day's Work You Should Feel Exhausted, Emptied Of Every Sensation And Every Thought, With A Blank Mind And An Aching Heart, With The Notion That There Is Nothing, - Nothing Left In You.

A Certain Simplicity Of Thought Is Common To Serene Souls At Both Ends Of The Social Scale.

Art Is Long And Life Is Short, And Success Is Very Far Off.

Vanity Plays Lurid Tricks With Our Memory.

We Are Snared Into Doing Things For Which We Get Called Names, And Things For Which We Get Hanged, And Yet The Spirit May Well Survive - Survive The Condemnations, Survive The Halter, By Jove! And There Are Things - They Look Small Enough Sometimes Too - By Which Some Of Us Are Totally And Completely Undone.

Some Of Us, Regarding The Ocean With Understanding And Affection, Have Seen It Looking Old, As If The Immemorial Ages Had Been Stirred Up From The Undisturbed Bottom Of Ooze. For It Is A Gale Of Wind That Makes The Sea Look Old.

Words, As Is Well Known, Are The Great Foes Of Reality. I Have Been For Many Years A Teacher Of Languages. It Is An Occupation Which At Length Becomes Fatal To Whatever Share Of Imagination, Observation, And Insight An Ordinary Person May Be Heir To. To A Teacher Of Languages There Comes A Time When The World Is But A Place Of Many Words And Man Appears A Mere Talking Animal Not Much More Wonderful Than A Parrot.

In Plucking The Fruit Of Memory One Runs The Risk Of Spoiling Its Bloom, Especially If It Has Got To Be Carried Into The Market.

We Penetrated Deeper And Deeper Into The Heart Of Darkness

Heart Of Darkness

No, It Is Impossible; It Is Impossible To Convey The Life-sensation Of Any Given Epoch Of One’s Existence--that Which Makes Its Truth, Its Meaning--its Subtle And Penetrating Essence. It Is Impossible. We Live, As We Dream--alone.

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.

As To Honor - You Know - It's A Very Fine Mediaeval Inheritance Which Women Never Got Hold Of. It Wasn't Theirs.

Yet, When One Thinks Of It, Diplomacy Without Force Is A But A Rotten Reed To Lean Upon.

He Has To Live In The Midst Of The Incomprehensible, Which Is Detestable. And It Has A Fascination, Too, Which Goes To Work Upon Him. The Fascination Of The Abomination--you Know.

It’s Extraordinary How We Go Through Life With Eyes Half Shut, With Dull Ears, With Dormant Thoughts. Perhaps It’s Just As Well; And It May Be That It Is This Very Dullness That Makes Life To The Incalculable Majority So Supportable And So Welcome.

I Am A Great Foe Of Favoritism In Public Life, In Private Life, And Even In The Delicate Relationship Of An Author To His Works.

If You Don't Make Mistakes, You Don't Make Anything .

Making Mistakes

The Nellie, A Cruising Yawl, Swung To Her Anchor Without A Flutter Of The Sails, And Was At Rest. The Flood Had Made, The Wind Was Nearly Calm, And Being Bound Down The River, The Only Thing For It Was To Come And Wait For The Turn Of The Tide.

They Trespassed Upon My Thoughts. They Were Intruders Whose Knowledge Of Life Was To Me An Irritating Pretense, Because I Felt So Sure They Could Not Possibly Know The Things I Knew. Their Bearing, Which Was Simply The Bearing Of Commonplace Individuals Going About Their Business In The Assurance Of Perfect Safety, Was Offensive To Me Like The Outrageous Flauntings Of Folly In The Face Of A Danger It Is Unable To Comprehend. I Had No Particular Desire To Enlighten Them, But I Had Some Difficulty In Restraining Myself From Laughing In Their Faces, So Full Of Stupid Importance.

There Is No Peace And No Rest In The Development Of Material Interests. They Have Their Law, And Their Justice. But It Is Founded On Expediency, And Is Inhuman; It Is Without Rectitude, Without The Continuity And The Force That Can Be Found Only In A Moral Principle.

There Is Nothing More Enticing, Disenchanting, And Enslaving Than The Life At Sea.

All Ambitions Are Lawful Except Those Which Climb Upward On The Miseries Or Credulities Of Mankind.

I Remember My Youth... The Feeling That I Could Last Forever, Outlast The Sea, The Earth, And All Men.

We Couldn't Understand Because We Were Too Far... And Could Not Remember Because We Were Traveling In The Night Of First Ages, Those Ages That Had Gone, Leaving Hardly A Sign... And No Memories.

For A Time I Would Feel I Belonged Still To A World Of Straightforward Facts; But The Feeling Would Not Last Long. Something Would Turn Up To Scare It Away.

It Would Take Too Long To Explain The Intimate Alliance Of Contradictions In Human Nature Which Makes Love Itself Wear At Times The Desperate Shape Of Betrayal. And Perhaps There Is No Possible Explanation.

... It Was Written I Should Be Loyal To The Nightmare Of My Choice.

All One's Work Might Have Been Better Done; But This Is A Sort Of Reflection A Worker Must Put Aside Courageously If He Doesn't Mean Every One Of His Conceptions To Remain Forever A Private Vision, An Evanescent Reverie.

Any Fool Can Carry On, But A Wise Man Knows How To Shorten Sail In Time.

The Conquest Of The Earth... Is Not A Pretty Thing When You Look Into It Too Much. What Redeems It Is The Idea Only... Not A Sentimental Pretence But An Idea.

There Is A Kind Way Of Assisting Our Fellow-creatures Which Is Enough To Break Their Hearts While It Saves Their Outer Envelope.

The Human Heart Is Vast Enough To Contain All The World.

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.

There Is Never Enough Time To Say Our Last Word-the Last Word Of Our Love, Of Our Desire, Faith, Remorse, Submission, Revolt.

Things And Men Have Always A Certain Sense, A Certain Side By Which They Must Be Got Hold Of If One Wants To Obtain A Solid Grasp And A Perfect Command.

[the Artist] 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 In Dreams, In Joy, In Sorrow, In Aspirations, In Illusions, In Hope, In Fearwhich Binds Together All Humanity--the Dead To The Living And The Living To The Unborn.

Give Me The Right Word And The Right Accent And I Will Move The World.

Everybody Had To Be Thoroughly Understood Before Being Accepted.

All A Man Can Betray Is His Conscience.

The Last Thing A Woman Will Consent To In A Man Whom She Loves, Or On Whom She Simply Depends, Is Want Of Courage.

Being Myself Animated By Feelings Of Affection Toward My Fellowmen, I Am Saddened By The Modern System Of Advertising. Whatever Evidence It Offers Of Enterprise, Ingenuity, Impudence, And Resource In Certain Individuals, It Proves To My Mind The Wide Prevalence Of That Form Of Mental Degradation Which Is Called Gullibility.

We Owe Much To The Fruitful Meditation Of Our Sages, But A Sane View Of Life Is, After All, Elaborated Mainly In The Kitchen.

They Had Behind Them, To My Mind, The Terrific Suggestiveness Of Words Heard In Dreams, Of Phrases Spoken In Nightmares.

The Real Significance Of Crime Is In Its Being A Breach Of Faith With The Community Of Mankind.

The Scrupulous And The Just, The Noble, Humane, And Devoted Natures; The Unselfish And The Intelligent May Begin A Movement - But It Passes Away From Them. They Are Not The Leaders Of A Revolution. They Are Its Victims.

Revolutionary Leaders

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.

Watching A Coast As It Slips By The Ship Is Like Thinking About An Enigma. There It Is Before You, Smiling, Frowning, Inviting, Grand, Mean, Insipid, Or Savage, And Always Mute With An Air Of Whispering, "come And Find Out".

Of All The Inanimate Objects, Of All Men's Creations, Books Are The Nearest To Us For They Contain Our Very Thoughts, Our Ambitions, Our Indignations, Our Illusions, Our Fidelity To The Truth, And Our Persistent Leanings To Error. But Most Of All They Resemble Us In Their Precious Hold On Life.

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.

That Faculty Of Beholding At A Hint The Face Of His Desire And The Shape Of His Dream, Without Which The Earth Would Know No Lover And No Adventurer.

Truth Of A Modest Sort I Can Promise You, And Also Sincerity. That Complete, Praiseworthy Sincerity Which, While It Delivers One Into The Hands Of One's Enemies, Is As Likely As Not To Embroil One With One's Friends.

We Live As We Dream - Alone.

The Revolutionary Spirit Is Mighty Convenient In This, That It Frees One From All Scruples As Regards Ideas. Its Hard Absolute Optimism Is Repulsive To My Mind By The Menace Of Fanaticism And Intolerance It Contains. No Doubt One Should Smile At These Things; But, Imperfect Esthete, I Am No Better Philosopher. All Claim To Special Righteousness Awakens In Me That Scorn And Anger From Which A Philosophical Mind Should Be Free.

For There Is Nothing Mysterious To A Seaman Unless It Be The Sea Itself, Which Is The Mistress Of His Existence.

A Man Is A Worker. If He Is Not That He Is Nothing.

It Is My Belief No Man Ever Understands Quite His Own Artful Dodges To Escape From The Grim Shadow Of Self Knowledge.

I Slipped The Book Into My Pocket. I Assure You To Leave Off Reading Was Like Tearing Myself Away From The Shelter Of An Old And Solid Friendship.

I Have Wrestled With Death. It Is The Most Unexciting Contest You Can Imagine.

There Is, As Every Schoolboy Knows In This Scientific Age, A Very Close Chemical Relation Between Coal And Diamonds. It Is The Reason, I Believe, Why Some People Allude To Coal As "black Diamonds." Both These Commodities Represent Wealth; But Coal Is A Much Less Portable Form Of Property.

Criticism, That Fine Flower Of Personal Expression In The Garden Of Letters.

The Terrorist And The Policeman Both Come From The Same Basket.

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.

History Repeats Itself, But The Special Call Of An Art Which Has Passed Away Is Never Reproduced. It Is As Utterly Gone Out Of The World As The Song Of A Destroyed Wild Bird.

One Can't Live With One's Finger Everlastingly On One's Pulse.

There Is No Credulity So Eager And Blind As The Credulity Of Covetousness, Which, In Its Universal Extent, Measures The Moral Misery And The Intellectual Destitution Of Mankind.

The Word 'ivory' Rang In The Air, Was Whispered, Was Sighed. You Would Think They Were Praying To It. A Taint Of Imbecile Rapacity Blew Through It All, Like A Whiff From Some Corpse. By Jove! I've Never Seen Anything So Unreal In My Life. And Outside, The Silent Wilderness Surrounding This Cleared Speck On The Earth Struck Me As Something Great And Invincible, Like Evil Or Truth, Waiting Patiently For The Passing Away Of This Fantastic Invasion.

The Moon Had Spread Over Everything A Thin Layer Of Silver - Over The Rank Grass, Over The Mud, Upon The Wall Of Matted Vegetation Standing Higher Than The Wall Of A Temple, Over The Great River I Could See Through A Sombre Gap Glittering, Glittering, As It Flowed Broadly By Without A Murmur. All This Was Great, Expectant, Mute, While The Man Jabbered About Himself.

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 Of The Very Essence Of Dreams.

Let Them Think What They Liked, But I Didn't Mean To Drown Myself. I Meant To Swim Till I Sank -- But That's Not The Same Thing.

Protection Is The First Necessity Of Opulence And Luxury.

Joy And Sorrow In This World Pass Into Each Other, Mingling Their Forms And Their Murmurs In The Twilight Of Life As Mysterious As An Overshadowed Ocean, While The Dazzling Brightness Of Supreme Hopes Lies Far Off, Fascinating And Still, On The Distant Edge Of The Horizon

Let A Fool Be Made Serviceable According To His Folly.

It Is To Be Remarked That A Good Many People Are Born Curiously Unfitted For The Fate Waiting Them On This Earth.

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William Cobbett

Henri Cartier-Bresson

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