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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.

-Joseph Conrad

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The Atmosphere Of Officialdom

Joseph Conrad

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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.

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

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 Human Heart Is Vast Enough To Contain All The World.

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.

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.

Who Would Care To Question The Ground Of Forgiveness Or Compassion.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Finding Yourself

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

[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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Protection Is The First Necessity Of Opulence And Luxury.

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 .

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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, 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

God Is For Men, And Religion For Women.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 Always Went My Own Road And On My Own Legs Where I Had A Mind To Go

We Can Never Cease To Be Ourselves.

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.

Going Home Must Be Like Going To Render An Account.

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.

The Mind Of Man Is Capable Of Anything.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Keeping Secrets

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

There Is Something Haunting In The Light Of The Moon.

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

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

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

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

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

Let A Fool Be Made Serviceable According To His Folly.

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.

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

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

Train Of Thought

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.

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

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 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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Making Mistakes

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Reality, As Usual, Beats Fiction Out Of Sight.

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.

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.

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.

I Suppose Everybody Must Be Always Just A Little Homesick.

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

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.

Violence Is Not A Catalyst But A Diversion.

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.

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.

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.

The Revolutionary Spirit Is Mighty Convenient In This, That It Frees One From All Scruples As Regards Ideas.

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.

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.

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 Live As We Dream - Alone.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Kisses Are The Remnants Of Paradise.

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

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

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

Never Test Another Man By Your Own Weakness.

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

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

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!

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.

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.

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

The Artist Appeals To That Part Of Our Being Which Is Not Dependent On Wisdom; To That In Us Which Is A Gift And Not An Acquisition-and Therefore, More Permanently Enduring. He Speaks To Our Capacity For Delight And Wonder, To The Sense Of Mystery Surrounding Our Lives; To Our Sense Of Pity, And Beauty And Pain.

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".

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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