Joseph Conrad Quotes

Nations it may be have fashioned their Governments, but the Governments have paid them back in the same coin.

I don't like work — no man does — but I like what is in the work — the chance to find yourself. Your own reality — for yourself not for others — what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.

The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries..acting upon our emotions and intelligence in ways so inexplicable that it would almost justify the conception of life as an enchanted state.
No, I am too firm in my consciousness of the marvellous to be ever fascinated by the mere supernatural...

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.

A man's real life is that accorded to him in the thoughts of other men by reason of respect or natural love.

Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.

Efficiency of a practically flawless kind may be reached naturally in the struggle for bread. But there is something beyond — a higher point, 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.

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.

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.

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.

Your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.

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.

Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everybody enjoys.

"God for men — religions for women," he muttered sometimes.

I can't tell if a straw ever saved a drowning man, but I know that a mere glance is enough to make despair pause. For in truth we who are creatures of impulse are not creatures of despair.