Background Image

...

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.

-Joseph Conrad

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

They Were Conquerors, And

Joseph Conrad

...

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.

Views: 8

Topic

More From Joseph Conrad

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.

Kisses Are The Remnants Of Paradise.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

The Mind Of Man Is Capable Of Anything.

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

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

Writing In English Is Like Throwing Mud At A Wall.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Making Mistakes

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.

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

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

God Is For Men, And Religion For Women.

There Is Something Haunting In The Light Of The Moon.

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.

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

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

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

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

We Live As We Dream - Alone.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Violence Is Not A Catalyst But A Diversion.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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 .

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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!

Youth Is Insolent; It Is Its Right - Its Necessity; It Has Got To Assert Itself, And All Assertion In This World Of Doubts Is A Defiance, Is An Insolence.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Finding Yourself

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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".

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Going Home Must Be Like Going To Render An Account.

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.

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

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

Reality, As Usual, Beats Fiction Out Of Sight.

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.

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

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.

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.

I Suppose Everybody Must Be Always Just A Little Homesick.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Beyond The Fence The Forest Stood Up Spectrally In The Moonlight, And Through The Dim Stir, Through The Faint Sounds Of That Lamentable Courtyard, The Silence Of The Land Went Home To One's Very Heart - Its Mystery, Its Greatness, The Amazing Reality Of Its Concealed Life.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Vanity Plays Lurid Tricks With Our Memory.

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

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

In Some Inland Post Feel The Savagery, The Utter Savagery, Had Closed Round Him--all That Mysterious Life Of The Wilderness That Stirs In The Forest, In The Jungles, In The Hearts Of Wild Men. There's No Initiation Either Into Such Mysteries. He Has To Live In The Midst Of The Incomprehensible, Which Is Detestable. And It Has A Fascination, Too, Which Goes To Work Upon Him. The Fascination Of The Abomination--you Know. Imagine The Growing Regrets, The Longing To Escape, The Powerless Disgust, The Surrender, The Hate.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

We Can Never Cease To Be Ourselves.

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

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

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

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

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

There Is 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.

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!

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

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

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

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

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.

Protection Is The First Necessity Of Opulence And Luxury.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

We Penetrated Deeper And Deeper Into The Heart Of Darkness

Heart Of Darkness

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

The 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.

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

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.

Trending Author

Category