718 Quotes by Joseph Conrad

A modern fleet of ships does not so much make use of the sea as exploit a highway.

It is the mark of an inexperienced man not to believe in luck.

We can never cease to be ourselves.

This magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it; but man will never on his heap of mud keep still.

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

I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmostphere of tepid scepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary.

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.

I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance.

Like a flash of lightning between the clouds, we live in the flicker.