The quotations of

Joseph Conrad

Polish-British writer

1857–1924

33 quotes, most often on Life & Death, Truth & Lies and Money.

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.
Under Western Eyes (1911), Pt. I, ch. 2
- Emotion
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
Under Western Eyes (1911), Pt. II, ch. 4
- Good & Evil
Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love — and to put its trust in life!!
Victory: An Island Tale, part IV, Ch. 14
I take it that what all men are really after is some form or perhaps only some formula of peace.
Under Western Eyes (1911), Pt. I
- Motivation & Goals
The world of finance is a mysterious world in which, incredible as the fact may appear, evaporation precedes liquidation.
Victory: An Island Tale (1915), part I, Ch. 1
- Business
- Money
They talk of a man betraying his country, his friends, his sweetheart. There must be a moral bond first. All a man can betray is his conscience.
Under Western Eyes (1911), Pt. I, ch. 2
- Morality
There is no credulity so eager and blind as the credulity of covetousness, which, in its universal extent, measures the moral misery and the intellectual destitution of mankind.
Nostromo (1904), Part Third: The Lighthouse, Ch. 9
- Money
Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.
Under Western Eyes (1911), Pt. I
- Talking
- Truth & Lies
To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.
Under Western Eyes (1911), Pt. I
- Talking
“And this also,” said Marlow suddenly, “has been one of the dark places of the earth.”
Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIn context
- History
To him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.
Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIn context
- Writing
They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force⁠—nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.
Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIn context
- Power
- War & Peace
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.
Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIn context
- Power
- Race
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 appalls 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.
Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIn context
- Truth & Lies
No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence⁠—that which makes its truth, its meaning⁠—its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream⁠—alone.
Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIn context
- Life & Death

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