The quotations of

Joseph Conrad

Polish-British writer

1857–1924

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

I don’t like work⁠—no man does⁠—but I like what is in the work⁠—the chance to find yourself. Your own reality⁠—for yourself, not for others⁠—what no other man can ever know.
Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIn context
- Work
To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe.
Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIn context
- Money
- Morality
Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings.
Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIIn context
- History
- Nature
The mind of man is capable of anything⁠—because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future.
Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIIn context
- Thinking
No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze.
Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIIn context
- Fear
- Food
The horror! The horror!
Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIIIn context
- Fear
- Life & Death
‘Mistah Kurtz⁠—he dead.’
Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIIIn context
- Life & Death
I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine.
Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIIIn context
- Life & Death
Perhaps all the wisdom, and all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible.
Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIIIn context
The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky⁠—seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.
Heart of Darkness (1899), Part IIIIn context
- Nature
It’s extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it’s just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome.
Lord Jim (1900), Chapter 13In context
- Life & Death
- Thinking
The real significance of crime is in its being a breach of faith with the community of mankind
Lord Jim (1900), Chapter 14In context
- Justice
- Laws
Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.
Lord Jim (1900), Chapter 21In context
- Faith
- Nature
Frankly, it is not my words that I mistrust but your minds. I could be eloquent were I not afraid you fellows had starved your imaginations to feed your bodies. I do not mean to be offensive; it is respectable to have no illusions⁠—and safe⁠—and profitable⁠—and dull.
Lord Jim (1900), Chapter 21In context
- Thinking
How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a spectre through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its spectral throat?
Lord Jim (1900), Chapter 33In context
- Fear

Most quoted

People A to Z

C. S. Lewis1898–1963151 quotes

Mark Twain1835–1910151 quotes

Benjamin Franklin1706–179098 quotes

Martin Luther King Jr.1929–196884 quotes

Albert Einstein1879–195595 quotes

Dave Barryborn 1947100 quotes