Joseph Conrad: Trending quotes

Source: The Secret Agent (1907), Ch. 3
Context: All idealization makes life poorer. To beautify it is to take away its character of complexity — it is to destroy it. Leave that to the moralists, my boy. History is made by men, but they do not make it in their heads. The ideas that are born in their consciousness play an insignificant part in the march of events. History is dominated and determined by the tool and the production — by the force of economic conditions. Capitalism has made socialism, and the laws made by the capitalist for the protection of property are responsible for anarchism. No one can tell what form the social organisation may take in the future. Then why indulge in prophetic phantasies? At best they can only interpret the mind of the prophet, and can have no objective value. Leave that pastime to the moralists, my boy.

Life

“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.”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Reality , Chance

“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.”

Joseph Conrad Lord Jim

Variant: My task is to make you hear, to make you feel, and, above all, to make you see. That is all, and it is everything.
Source: Lord Jim

Feeling

“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.”

Joseph Conrad

Source: The Secret Sharer and other stories

Thinking

“We live as we dream--alone….”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Dreams

“Only a seaman realises to what great extent an entire ship reflects the personality and ability of one individual, her Commanding Officer. To a landsman, this is not understandable—and sometimes it is even difficult for us to comprehend—but it is so! A ship at sea is a different world in herself, and in consideration of the protracted and distant operations of the fleet units, the Navy must place great power, responsibility and trust in the hands of those leaders chosen for command. In each ship there is one man who, in the hour of emergency or peril at sea, can turn to no other man. There is one who alone is ultimately responsible for the safe navigation, engineering performance, accurate gunfire and morale of the ship. He is the Commanding Officer. He is the ship. This is the most difficult and demanding assignment in the Navy. There is not an instant during his tour as Commanding Officer that he can escape the grasp of command responsibility. His privileges, in view of his obligations, are almost ludicrously small; nevertheless, this is the spur which has given the Navy its great leaders. It is a duty which richly deserves the highest, time-honoured title of the seafaring world—Captain.”

Joseph Conrad

Command at Sea: the Prestige, Privilege and Burden of Command

World , Understanding , Distant , Time

“Above all, we must forgive the unhappy souls who have elected to make the pilgrimage on foot, who skirt the shore and look uncomprehendingly upon the horror of the struggle, the joy of victory, the profound hopelessness of the vanquished.”

Joseph Conrad

Letter (March 1890), published in The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad, edited by Frederick R. Karl and Laurence Davies, Vol. 1, p. 43 ISBN 0521242169

Soul , Forgiveness , Victory , Joy

“Madness alone is truly terrifying, inasmuch as you cannot placate it by threats, persuasion, or bribes.”

Joseph Conrad book The Secret Agent

Source: The Secret Agent

Madness

“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 book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

“The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.”

Joseph Conrad book The Mirror of the Sea

Source: The Mirror of the Sea (1906), Ch. 35
Context: For all that has been said of the love that certain natures (on shore) have professed to feel for it, for all the celebrations it had 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.

Sea

“We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Heart

“We live in the flicker -- may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday.”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness