“When he stepped off the straight and narrow path of his peculiar honesty, it was with an inward assertion of unflinching resolve to fall back again into the monotonous but safe stride of virtue as soon as his little excursion into the wayside quagmires had produced the desired effect.”

— Joseph Conrad

An Outcast of the Islands http://www.gutenberg.org/files/638/638-h/638-h.htm (1896), first lines,

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Joseph Conrad 127

Polish-British writer 1857–1924

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