718 Quotes by Joseph Conrad

The last thing a woman will consent to in a man whom she loves, or on whom she simply depends, is want of courage.

In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny.

The ocean has the conscienceless temper of a savage autocrat spoiled by much adulation

The blight of futility that lies in wait for men's speeches had fallen upon our conversation and made it a thing of empty sounds.

Sometimes it takes all my resolution and power of self-control to refrain from butting my head against the wall. I want to howl and foam at the mouth but I daren't.

I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more --the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort --to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires --and expires, too soon, too soon --before life itself.

All roads are long which lead to one's heart's desire.

The end (goal) of art is to figure the hidden meaning of things and not their appearance; for in this profound truth lies their true reality, which does not appear in their external outlines.

In plucking the fruit of memory one runs the risk of spoiling its bloom