Joseph Conrad Quotes

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

The mind of man is capable of anything.

It is to be remarked that a good many people are born curiously unfitted for the fate waiting them on this earth.

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.

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.

Everybody had to be thoroughly understood before being accepted.

To be a great autocrat you must be a great barbarian.

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.

I always went my own road and on my own legs where I had a mind to go.

The discovery of America was the occasion of the greatest outburst of cruelty and reckless greed known in history.