More - Joseph Conrad Quotes

As in political so in literary action a man wins friends for himself mostly by the passion of his prejudices and the consistent narrowness of his outlook.

Joseph Conrad

 Action Polish Novelist

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary: men alone are quite capable of every wickedness

Joseph Conrad

 Belief

He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.

Joseph Conrad

 Polish Novelist

Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it.

Joseph Conrad

 Polish Novelist

Above all, we must forgive the unhappy souls who have elected to make the pilgrimage on foot, who skirt the shore and look uncomprehendingly upon the horror of the struggle, the joy of victory, the profound hopelessness of the vanquished

Joseph Conrad

 

It is when we try to grapple with another man's intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering, and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun.

Joseph Conrad

 People

It is respectable to have no illusions - and safe - and profitable, and dull

Joseph Conrad

 

There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery

Joseph Conrad

 

I would not unduly praise the virtue of restraint. It is often merely temperamental. But it is not always a sign of coldness. It may be pride. There can be nothing more humiliating than to see the shaft of one's emotion miss the mark of either laughter or tears. Nothing more humiliating! And this for the reason that should the mark be missed, should the open display of emotion fail to move, then it must perish unavoidably in disgust or contempt.

Joseph Conrad

 Praise

What is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow-men's existence strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history?

Joseph Conrad

 Conviction Fiction