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I Found Myself Back In The Sepulchral City Resenting The Sight Of People Hurrying Through The Streets To Filch A Little Money From Each Other, To Devour Their Infamous Cookery, To Gulp Their Unwholesome Beer, To Dream Their Insignificant And Silly Dreams. They Trespassed Upon My Thoughts.

-Joseph Conrad

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I Found Myself Back

Joseph Conrad

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I Found Myself Back In The Sepulchral City Resenting The Sight Of People Hurrying Through The Streets To Filch A Little Money From Each Other, To Devour Their Infamous Cookery, To Gulp Their Unwholesome Beer, To Dream Their Insignificant And Silly Dreams. They Trespassed Upon My Thoughts.

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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.

The East Wind, An Interloper In The Dominions Of Westerly Weather, Is An Impassive-faced Tyrant With A Sharp Poniard Held Behind His Back For A Treacherous Stab.

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.

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.

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

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.

A Historian May Be An Artist Too, And A Novelist Is A Historian, The Preserver, The Keeper, The Expounder, Of Human Experience.

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.

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

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

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.

Vanity Plays Lurid Tricks With Our Memory, And The Truth Of Every Passion Wants Some Pretence To Make It Live.

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.

The End (goal) Of Art Is To Figure The Hidden Meaning Of Things And Not Their Appearance; For In This Profound Truth Lies Their True Reality, Which Does Not Appear In Their External Outlines.

The Earth For Us Is A Place To Live In, Where We Must Put Up With Sights, With Sounds, With Smells, Too, By Jove! - Breathe Dead Hippo, So As To Speak, And Not Be Contaminated. And There, Don't You See? Your Strength Comes In, The Faith In Your Ability For The Digging Of Unostentatious Holes To Bury The Stuff In - Your Power Of Devotion, Not To Yourself, But To An Obscure, Back-breaking Business.

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

Finding Yourself

Here's The Main Page Of Motivational Quotes, If You Want A Different Topic. Gossip Is What No One Claims To Like, But Everybody Enjoys.

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.

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

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.

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

It's Only Those Who Do Nothing That Make No Mistakes, I Suppose.

To Have His Path Made Clear For Him Is The Aspiration Of Every Human Being In Our Beclouded And Tempestuous Existence.

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.

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.

To Be A Great Autocrat You Must Be A Great Barbarian.

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.

We Penetrated Deeper And Deeper Into The Heart Of Darkness

Heart Of Darkness

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.

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.

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

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

Action Is Consolatory. It Is The Enemy Of Thought And The Friend Of Flattering Illusions.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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

The Sea Has Never Been Friendly To Man. At Most It Has Been The Accomplice Of Human Restlessness.

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

I Sit Down Religiously Every Morning, I Sit Down For Eight Hours Every Day - And The Sitting Down Is All.

The Vision Seemed To Enter The House With Me-the Stretcher, The Phantom-bearers, The Wild Crowd Of Obedient Worshippers, The Gloom Of The Forests, The Glitter Of The Reach Between The Murky Bends, The Beat Of The Drum, Regular And Muffled Like The Beating Of A Heart-the Heart Of A Conquering Darkness.

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

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 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.

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

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

I Suppose Everybody Must Be Always Just A Little Homesick.

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.

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.

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

Even Extreme Grief May Ultimately Vent Itself In Violence--but More Generally Takes The Form Of Apathy

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Reality, As Usual, Beats Fiction Out Of Sight.

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.

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.

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.

Going Home Must Be Like Going To Render An Account.

An Artist Is A Man Of Action, Whether He Creates A Personality, Invents An Expedient, Or Finds The Issue Of A Complicated Situation.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Can't Tell If A Straw Ever Saved A Drowning Man, But I Know That A Mere Glance Is Enough To Make Dspair Pause. For In Truth, We Who Are Creatures Of Impulse, Are Creatures Of Despair.

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

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

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 .

There Are Men Here And There To Whom The Whole Of Life Is Like An After-dinner Hour With A Cigar; Easy, Pleasant, Empty, Perhaps Enlivened By Some Fable Of Strife To Be Forgotten - Before The End Is Told - Even If There Happens To Be Any End To It.

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

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?

The Blight Of Futility That Lies In Wait For Men's Speeches Had Fallen Upon Our Conversation And Made It A Thing Of Empty Sounds.

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

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.

I -- I Alone Know How To Mourn For Him As He Deserves.' But While We Were Still Shaking Hands, Such A Look Of Awful Desolation Came Upon Her Face That I Perceived She Was One Of Those Creatures That Are Not The Playthings Of Time. For Her He Had Died Only Yesterday. And, By Jove! The Impression Was So Powerful That For Me, Too, He Seemed To Have Died Only Yesterday -- Nay, This Very Minute. I Saw Her And Him In The Same Instant Of Time -- His Death And Her Sorrow -- I Saw Her Sorrow In The Very Moment Of His Death. Do You Understand? I Saw Them Together -- I Heard Them Together.

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

There Is A Subtle And Unmistakable Touch Of Love And Pride, Beyond Mere Skill, Almost An Inspiration Which Gives To All Work That Finish Which Is Almost Art - Which Is Art.

You Can't Breathe Dead Hippo Waking, Sleeping, And Eating, And At The Same Time Keep Your Precarious Grip On Existence.

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

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

You Can't, In Sound Morals, Condemn A Man For Taking Care Of His Own Integrity. It Is His Clear Duty.

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.

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

The Mind Of Man Is Capable Of Anything--because Everything Is In It, All The Past As Well As All The Future. What Was There After All? Joy, Fear, Sorrow, Devotion, Valor, Rage--who Can Tell?--but Truth--truth Stripped Of Its Cloak Of Time.

Your Strength Is Just An Accident Owed To The Weakness Of Others.

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!

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.

I Think It Had Whispered To Him Things About Himself Which He Did Not Know, Things Of Which He Had No Conception Till He Took Counsel With This Great Solitude - And The Whisper Had Proved Irresistibly Fascinating. It Echoed Loudly Within Him Because He Was Hollow At The Core.

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.

A Man's Most Open Actions Have A Secret Side To Them.

Keeping Secrets

Gossip Is What No One Claims To Like, But Everybody Enjoys.

Vanity Plays Lurid Tricks With Our Memory.

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.

She Feared The Unknown As We All Do, And Her Ignorance Made The Unknown Infinitely Vast.

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

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.

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.

Every Age Is Fed On Illusions, Lest Men Should Renounce Life Early And The Human Race Come To An End.

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.

The Sea - This 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.

It Is Respectable To Have No Illusions, And Safe, And Profitable And Dull.

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.

Being A Woman Is A Terribly Difficult Task, Since It Consists Principally In Dealing With Men.

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.

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

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.

I Was Constantly Watching Myself, My Secret Self, As Dependent On My Actions As My Own Personality

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

Train Of Thought

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.

The Question Is Not How To Get Cured, But How To Live.

There Is Something Haunting In The Light Of The Moon.

Analytical Philosophy Was Very Interesting. It Always Struck Me As Being Very Interesting And Full Of Tremendous Intellectual Curiosities. It Is Wonderful To See The Mind At Work In Such An Intense Manner, But, For Me, It Was Still Too Far Removed From My Own Issues.

A Writer Without Interest Or Sympathy For The Foibles Of His Fellow Man Is Not Conceivable As A Writer.

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

The Vilest Scramble For Loot That Ever Disfigured The History Of Human Conscience.

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

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.

A Modern Fleet Of Ships Does Not So Much Make Use Of The Sea As Exploit A Highway.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Making Mistakes

In The Empty Immensity Of Earth, Sky, And Water, There She Was, Incomprehensible, Firing Into A Continent.

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

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

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

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

The Mysteries Of A Universe Made Of Drops Of Fire And Clods Of Mud Do Not Concern Us In The Least. The Fate Of Humanity Condemned Ultimately To Perish From Cold Is Not Worth Troubling About. If You Take It To Heart It Becomes An Unendurable Tragedy. If You Believe In Improvement You Must Weep, For The Attained Perfection Must End In Cold, Darkness And Silence. In A Dispassionate View The Ardour For Reform, Improvement For Virtue, And Knowledge, And Even For Beauty Is Only A Vain Sticking Up For Appearances As Though One Were Anxious About The Cut Of One's Clothes In A Community Of Blind Men.

And This Also," Said Marlow Suddenly, "has Been One Of The Dark Places Of The Earth.

Violence Is Not A Catalyst But A Diversion.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Ah! These Commercial Interests -- Spoiling The Finest Life Under The Sun. Why Must The Sea Be Used For Trade -- And For War As Well?...it Would Have Been So Much Nicer Just To Sail About, With Here And There A Port And A Bit Of Land To Stretch One's Legs On, Buy A Few Books And Get A Change Of Cooking For A While.

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.

It Occurred To Me That My Speech Or My Silence, Indeed Any Action Of Mine, Would Be A Mere Futility.

Let A Fool Be Made Serviceable According To His Folly.

A Writing May Be Lost; A Lie May Be Written; But What The Eye Has Seen Is Truth And Remains In The Mind!

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

This Magnificent Butterfly Finds A Little Heap Of Dirt And Sits Still On It; But Man Will Never On His Heap Of Mud Keep Still.

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

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

God Is For Men, And Religion For Women.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Ethical View Of The Universe Involves Us In So Many Cruel And Absurd Contradictions That I Have Come To Suspect That The Aim Of Creation Cannot Be Ethical At All.

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 Some Inland Post Feel The Savagery, The Utter Savagery, Had Closed Round Him--all That Mysterious Life Of The Wilderness That Stirs In The Forest, In The Jungles, In The Hearts Of Wild Men. There's No Initiation Either Into Such Mysteries. 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. Imagine The Growing Regrets, The Longing To Escape, The Powerless Disgust, The Surrender, The Hate.

A Man That Is Born Falls Into A Dream Like A Man Who Falls Into The Sea.

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

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

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

There Is A Taint Of Death, A Flavour Of Mortality In Lies.

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

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.

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

The Interior Deprives Men Of Their Senses. Here, The Eerie Stillness Of The Wilderness And The Darkness Of Night Render The Men Both Deaf And Blind. Without Eyes Or Ears, They Have No Frame Of Reference-and Without A Frame Of Reference, They Have No Clear Identities.

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.

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.

We Live As We Dream - Alone.

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

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".

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Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

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