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.

Joseph Conrad

Categorized in : Laughing Desire Stupid

And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark p... by Joseph Conrad

And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth.

earth dark said

Conrad placed on the title page an epigraph taken from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene: "Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please" This also became Conrad's epitaph.

taken sea sleep

He hated all this, and somehow he couldn't get away. by Joseph Conrad

He hated all this, and somehow he couldn't get away.

get-away hated

Don't you forget what's divine in the Russian soul and that's res... by Joseph Conrad

Don't you forget what's divine in the Russian soul and that's resignation.

soul literature forget

Certain streets have an atmosphere of their own, a sort of universal fame and the particular affection of their citizens. One of such streets is the Cannebiere, and the jest: "If Paris had a Cannebiere, it would be a little Marseilles" is the jocular expression of municipal pride. I, too, I have been under the spell. For me it has been a street leading into the unknown.

paris pride book

In the time of Spanish rule, and for many years afterwards, the town of Sulaco--the luxuriant beauty of the orange gardens bears witness to its antiquity--had never been commercially anything more important than a coasting port with a fairly large local trade in ox-hides and indigo.

orange garden book

Happiness, happiness ... the flavor is with you-with you alone, and you can make it as intoxicating as you please.

flavor please happiness

Nations it may be have fashioned their Governments, but the Governments have paid them back in the same coin.

coins government literature

There is something haunting in the light of the moon. by Joseph Conrad

There is something haunting in the light of the moon.

halloween light moon

All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind. All intellectual and artistic ambitions are permissible, up to and even beyond the limit of prudent sanity. They can hurt no one.

intellectual ambition hurt

Resignation, not mystic, not detached, but resignation open-eyed, conscious, and informed by love, is the only one of our feelings for which it is impossible to become a sham.

literature feelings love-is

The world of finance is a mysterious world in which, incredible as the fact may appear, evaporation precedes liquidation.

may facts world

A man's real life is that accorded to him in the thoughts of other men by reason of respect or natural love.

real love men

For a moment I had a view of a world that seemed to wear a vast and dismal aspect of disorder, while, in truth, thanks to our unwearied efforts, it is as sunny an arrangement of small conveniences as the mind of man can conceive.

effort views men

The humblest craft that floats makes its appeal to a seaman by th... by Joseph Conrad

The humblest craft that floats makes its appeal to a seaman by the faithfulness of her life.

nautical sailing crafts

She feared the unknown as we all do, and her ignorance made the u... by Joseph Conrad

She feared the unknown as we all do, and her ignorance made the unknown infinitely vast.

ignorance made

I can't tell if a straw ever saved a drowning man, but I know that a mere glance is enough to make dspair pause. For in truth, we who are creatures of impulse, are creatures of despair.

despair love men

You can't breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence.

waking literature sleep

The mysteries of a universe made of drops of fire and clods of mud do not concern us in the least. The fate of humanity condemned ultimately to perish from cold is not worth troubling about. If you take it to heart it becomes an unendurable tragedy. If you believe in improvement you must weep, for the attained perfection must end in cold, darkness and silence. In a dispassionate view the ardour for reform, improvement for virtue, and knowledge, and even for beauty is only a vain sticking up for appearances as though one were anxious about the cut of one's clothes in a community of blind men.

fate heart believe

Truth of a modest sort I can promise you, and also sincerity. That complete, praiseworthy sincerity which, while it delivers one into the hands of one's enemies, is as likely as not to embroil one with one's friends.

hands enemy promise