Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.
JOSEPH CONRADThe discovery of America was the occasion of the greatest outburst of cruelty and reckless greed known in history.
More Joseph Conrad Quotes
-
-
God is for men, and religion for women.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
The ethical view of the universe involves us in so many cruel and absurd contradictions that I have come to suspect that the aim of creation cannot be ethical at all.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
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.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
Who knows what true loneliness is – not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
A certain simplicity of thought is common to serene souls at both ends of the social scale.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
To be a great autocrat you must be a great barbarian.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
The sea – this truth must be confessed – has no generosity. No display of manly qualities – courage, hardihood, endurance, faithfulness – has ever been known to touch its irresponsible consciousness of power.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
What makes mankind tragic is not that they are the victims of nature, it is that they are conscious of it.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
We live as we dream – alone.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
You can’t, in sound morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It is his clear duty.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
It’s only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
The real significance of crime is in its being a breach of faith with the community of mankind.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
A word carries far, very far, deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
A task, any task, undertaken in an adventurous spirit acquires the merit of romance.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
Everybody had to be thoroughly understood before being accepted.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
All a man can betray is his conscience.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
Reality, as usual, beats fiction out of sight.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
As a general rule, a reputation is built on manner as much as on achievement.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
We live in the flicker — may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
It is the mark of an inexperienced man not to believe in luck.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
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 -
All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.
JOSEPH CONRAD -
One must explore deep and believe the incredible to find the new particles of truth floating in an ocean of insignificance.
JOSEPH CONRAD