718 Quotes by Joseph Conrad

You can’t, in sound morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It is his clear duty.

Let them think what they liked, but I didn’t mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank – but that’s not the same thing.

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.

Night, the inevitable reward of men’s faithful labors on this earth...

He was easily sorry for people.

In the destructive element immerse.

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.

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

Life knows us not and we do not know life – -we don’t know even our own thoughts. Half the words we use have no meaning whatever and of the other half each man understands each word after the fashion of his own folly and conceit. Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of tomorrow.