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Joseph Conrad Quotes

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Joseph Conrad, born on December 3, 1857 in Poland and died on August 3, 1924 in the United Kingdom, was a renowned British author of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is known for his profound descriptions of maritime life and his insightful explorations of human nature.

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Famous Joseph Conrad Quotes

“There is, as every schoolboy knows in this scientific age, a very close chemical relation between coal and diamonds. It is the reason, I believe, why some people allude to coal as "black diamonds." Both these commodities represent wealth; but coal is a much less portable form of property.”

People Knows Believe Book Reason Age Form I Believe Black Wealth Relation Property Chemicals Diamond Commodity Coal Black Diamonds

Book:Victory

Source: Victory

“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.”

Knows Self Fall Love Is Falling In Love Isolated Inseparable Emergence Old Self New Self

Author:Joseph Conrad

“I do not know whether I have been a good seaman, but I know I have been a very faithful one.”

Knows Has Beens Faithful Seamen

Book:The Complete Novels of Joseph Conrad - All 20 Works in One Premium Edition: Including Unforgettable Titles like Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, Under Western Eyes and Many More (With Author’s Letters, Memoirs and Critical Essays)

Source: The Complete Novels of Joseph Conrad - All 20 Works in One Premium Edition: Including Unforgettable Titles like Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, Under Western Eyes and Many More (With Author’s Letters, Memoirs and Critical Essays)

“He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is detestable. And it has a fascination, too, which goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination--you know.”

Knows Darkness Midst Fascination Abomination

Book:Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

“They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. 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.”

Source: Heart of Darkness

“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”

Knows Men Use Dies Belief Memories Half Fashion Tomorrow Myth Yesterday Folly Shore Mist Conceit Other Half

Book:The Selected Letters of Joseph Conrad

Source: The Selected Letters of Joseph Conrad

“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.”

Knows World Want Lying Hate Forget Bears I Hate Mortality Detest Flavour

Book:Heart of Darkness and Other Stories

Source: Heart of Darkness and Other Stories

“The very young have, properly speaking, no moments. It is the privilege of early youth to live in advance of its days in all the beautiful continuity of hope which knows no pauses and no introspection.”

Knows Moments Beautiful Young Youth Privilege Pauses Introspection Continuity

Book:The Secret Sharer and Other Stories

Source: The Secret Sharer and Other Stories

“I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude - and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core.”

Thinking Knows Darkness Solitude Core Fascinating Conception Hollow

Book:Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

“Everything belonged to him--but that was a trifle. The thing to know was what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own.”

Knows Darkness Trifles Heart Of Darkness

Book:Heart of Darkness: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Source: Heart of Darkness: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

“I -- I alone know how to mourn for him as he deserves.' But while we were still shaking hands, such a look of awful desolation came upon her face that I perceived she was one of those creatures that are not the playthings of Time. For her he had died only yesterday. And, by Jove! the impression was so powerful that for me, too, he seemed to have died only yesterday -- nay, this very minute. I saw her and him in the same instant of time -- his death and her sorrow -- I saw her sorrow in the very moment of his death. Do you understand? I saw them together -- I heard them together.”

Source: Joseph Conrad Ultimate Collection: 18 Novels, 20+ Short Stories, Letters & Memoirs: Including Classics like Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Duel, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, Victory, The Shadow-Line & Under Western Eyes

“Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time.”

Knows Men Inspirational Funny Know How Wise Fool Boat Sail Sailing Nautical Yacht Sailing And The Sea Boats And Sailing

Author:Joseph Conrad

“That faculty of beholding at a hint the face of his desire and the shape of his dream, without which the earth would know no lover and no adventurer.”

Knows Dream Earth Faces Desire Adventure Lovers Shapes Faculty Hints Adventurer

Author:Joseph Conrad

“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.”