Background Image

...

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.

-Joseph Conrad

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Interior Deprives Men

Joseph Conrad

...

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.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Joseph Conrad

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Finding Yourself

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.

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

There Is Something Haunting In The Light Of The Moon.

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

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".

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Making Mistakes

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

The Mind Of Man Is Capable Of Anything.

Protection Is The First Necessity Of Opulence And Luxury.

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

We Live As We Dream - Alone.

Vanity Plays Lurid Tricks With Our Memory.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

God Is For Men, And Religion For Women.

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

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 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.

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.

Let A Fool Be Made Serviceable According To His Folly.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

[the 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The Terrorist And The Policeman Both Come From The Same Basket. Revolution, Legality--counter-moves In The Same Game; Forms Of Idleness At Bottom Identical.

Writing In English Is Like Throwing Mud At A Wall.

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.

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

Going Home Must Be Like Going To Render An Account.

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

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.

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

Keeping Secrets

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.

Reality, As Usual, Beats Fiction Out Of Sight.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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 Terrorist And The Policeman Both Come From The Same Basket.

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

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

They 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

We Penetrated Deeper And Deeper Into The Heart Of Darkness

Heart Of Darkness

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Kisses Are The Remnants Of Paradise.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Everybody Had To Be Thoroughly Understood Before Being Accepted.

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.

We Can Never Cease To Be Ourselves.

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

Trending Author

Helen Gurley Brown

Wentworth Miller

Category