Background Image

...

Life Knows Us Not And We Do Not Know Life—-we Don’t Know Even Our Own Thoughts. Half The Words We Use Have No Meaning Whatever And Of The Other Half Each Man Understands Each Word After The Fashion Of His Own Folly And Conceit. Faith Is A Myth And Beliefs Shift Like Mists On The Shore; Thoughts Vanish; Words, Once Pronounced, Die; And The Memory Of Yesterday Is As Shadowy As The Hope Of Tomorrow

-Joseph Conrad

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Life Knows Us Not

Joseph Conrad

...

Life Knows Us Not And We Do Not Know Life—-we Don’t Know Even Our Own Thoughts. Half The Words We Use Have No Meaning Whatever And Of The Other Half Each Man Understands Each Word After The Fashion Of His Own Folly And Conceit. Faith Is A Myth And Beliefs Shift Like Mists On The Shore; Thoughts Vanish; Words, Once Pronounced, Die; And The Memory Of Yesterday Is As Shadowy As The Hope Of Tomorrow

Views: 4

Topic

More From Joseph Conrad

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.

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.

That's Why Love Is So Inseparable From Any Talk About Truth And Death, Because We Know That Love Is Fundamentally A Death Of An Old Self That Was Isolated And The Emergence Of A New Self Now Entangled With Another Self, The Self That You Fall In Love With.

Falling In Love

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

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

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.

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

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

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 Artist In His Calling Of Interpreter Creates Because He Must. He Is So Much Of A Voice That, For Him, Silence Is Like Death

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

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.

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?

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

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

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.

Everybody Had To Be Thoroughly Understood Before Being Accepted.

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.

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

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

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

Kisses Are The Remnants Of Paradise.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 Do Not Know Whether I Have Been A Good Seaman, But I Know I Have Been A Very Faithful One.

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.

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.

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?

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

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

In The Time Of Spanish Rule, And For Many Years Afterwards, The Town Of Sulaco--the Luxuriant Beauty Of The Orange Gardens Bears Witness To Its Antiquity--had Never Been Commercially Anything More Important Than A Coasting Port With A Fairly Large Local Trade In Ox-hides And Indigo.

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.

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

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

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

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!

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.

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

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.

We Live In The Flicker -- May It Last As Long As The Old Earth Keeps Rolling! But Darkness Was Here Yesterday.

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 .

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Never Test Another Man By Your Own Weakness.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

There Is Something Haunting In The Light Of The Moon.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Protection Is The First Necessity Of Opulence And Luxury.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

You Know I Hate, Detest, And Can't Bear A Lie, Not Because I Am Straighter Than The Rest Of Us, But Simply Because It Appals Me. There Is A Taint Of Death, A Flavour Of Mortality In Lies - Which Is Exactly What I Hate And Detest In The World - What I Want To Forget.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Let A Fool Be Made Serviceable According To His Folly.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Finding Yourself

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Making Mistakes

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.

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

Reality, As Usual, Beats Fiction Out Of Sight.

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

Going Home Must Be Like Going To Render An Account.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

We Can Never Cease To Be Ourselves.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Follow Your Bliss. Find Where It Is And Don't Be Afraid To Follow It.

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

Train Of Thought

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.

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.

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

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.

Writing In English Is Like Throwing Mud At A Wall.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Trending Author

Louis Farrakhan

Gro Harlem Brundtland

Joseph Mitchell

Category