"Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line."
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Quote collection
Joseph Conrad quotes (page 6 of 14)
278 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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."
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"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."
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"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."
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"A man's most open actions have a secret side to them."
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"As to honor - you know - it's a very fine mediaeval inheritance which women never got hold of. It wasn't theirs."
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"For there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence."
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"In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent."
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"The terrorist and the policeman both come from the same basket."
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"Perhaps life is just that... a dream and a fear."
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"Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings."
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"A man is a worker. If he is not that he is nothing."
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"The real significance of crime is in its being a breach of faith with the community of mankind."
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"Art is long and life is short, and success is very far off."
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"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."
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"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"
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"... it was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice."
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"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."
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"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."
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"The last thing a woman will consent to in a man whom she loves, or on whom she simply depends, is want of courage."
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