Joseph Conrad: Trending quotes (page 2)

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Joseph Conrad: 254   quotes 46   likes

“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.”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Life , Truth , Dreams

“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.”

Joseph Conrad book Under Western Eyes

Pt. II, ch. 4
Source: Under Western Eyes (1911)

Men , Evil

“It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose.”

Joseph Conrad book An Outcast of the Islands

Source: An Outcast of the Islands (1896), Pt. 3, Ch. 2; possibly an adaptation of a Polish proverb, "Ten się nie myli, kto nic nie robi" — "One is not wrong, who does nothing."

“We live as we dream - alone. While the dream disappears, the life continues painfully.”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Life , Dreams

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men.”

Joseph Conrad book Chance

Source: Chance (1913) part II, Ch. 5

For women , Men

“All passion is lost now. The world is mediocre, limp, without force.”

Joseph Conrad book The Secret Agent

Source: The Secret Agent (1907), Ch. 13
Context: All passion is lost now. The world is mediocre, limp, without force. And madness and despair are a force. And force is a crime in the eyes of the fools, the weak and the silly who rule the roost. You are mediocre. Verloc, whose affair the police has managed to smother so nicely, was mediocre. And the police murdered him. He was mediocre. Everybody is mediocre. Madness and despair! Give me that for a lever, and I'll move the world. Ossipon, you have my cordial scorn. You are incapable of conceiving even what the fat-fed citizen would call a crime. You have no force.

World , Passion

“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.”

Joseph Conrad book Under Western Eyes

Pt. I
Under Western Eyes (1911)
Context: 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.

World , Teachers , Appearance , Time

“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.”

Joseph Conrad
Life , Support

“Like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker.”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

“the mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as the future”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Past , Future

“I couldn't have felt more of lonely desolation somehow, had I been robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny in life…”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Life

“Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.”

Joseph Conrad book Under Western Eyes

Pt. I
Source: Under Western Eyes (1911)
Context: 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.

Reality

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

Joseph Conrad

Variant: Gossip is what no one claims to like – but everybody enjoys.