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We can never cease to be ourselves.

Joseph Conrad

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

Alone Belief Evil Man Necessary Quite Source Wickedness
The real significance of crime is in its being a breach of faith with the community of mankind.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Community Crime Faith Kind Man Reality
What makes mankind tragic is not that they are the victims of nature, it is that they are conscious of it.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Conscience Kind Man Nature Tragedy Victim
It is respectable to have no illusions, and safe, and profitable and dull.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Illusion Profit Respect Safety
The question is not how to get cured, but how to live.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Cure Live Question
A task, any task, undertaken in an adventurous spirit acquires the merit of romance.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Adventure Romance Spirit Task
Art is long and life is short, and success is very far off.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Art Life Long Short Success
That’s why love is so inseparable from any talk about truth and death, because we know that love is fundamentally a death of an old self that was isolated and the emergence of a new self now entangled with another self, the self that you fall in love with.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Death Fall In Love Fundamental Love Separate Talk Truth
It would take too long to explain the intimate alliance of contradictions in human nature which makes love itself wear at times the desperate shape of betrayal. And perhaps there is no possible explanation.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Betrayal Desperate Explanation Human Love Nature Possible Time
Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Carry Fools Man Time Wisdom
I don’t like work but I like what is in work – the chance to find yourself. Your own reality – for yourself, not for others – which no other man can ever know.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Chance Discover Reality Work Yourself
I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Death Excitement Imagination Yourself
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

Argument Himself Power Right Trust World
Your strength is just an accident owed to the weakness of others.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Accident Strength Weakness Yourself
Nowhere else than upon the sea do the days, weeks, and months fall away quicker into the past. They seem to be left astern as easily as the light air-bubbles in the swirls of the ship’s wake.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Day Easy Fall Quick Sea Wake Up
We live in the flicker — may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Darkness Earth Live Long Old Past
The discovery of America was the occasion of the greatest outburst of cruelty and reckless greed known in history.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Cruelty Discover Greatness Greedy History Occasion
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

Illusion Lonely Memories Misery Naked Terrorism True Word
Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Art Imagination Invention Life Master
You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Enemy Friendship Judgement Man
A writing may be lost; a lie may be written; but what the eye has seen is truth and remains in the mind!
JOSEPH CONRAD

Eyes Lost Lying See Truth Wind Writing
You know I hate, detest, and can’t bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appals me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies – which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world – what I want to forget.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Death Forget Hate Mortal Myself Simplicity World
A word carries far, very far, deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Carry Deal Destruction Fly Space Word
Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Art Aspiration Carry Condition Humble Justice Work
I slipped the book into my pocket. I assure you to leave off reading was like tearing myself away from the shelter of an old and solid friendship.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Books Friendship Leaving Old Pocket Solid
Never test another man by your own weakness.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Judgement Man Weakness Yourself
In order to move others deeply we must deliberately allow ourselves to be carried away beyond the bounds of our normal sensibility.
JOSEPH CONRAD

Beyond Carry Move Normal Order Ourselves

We can never cease to be ourselves.

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We can never cease to be ourselves.

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