Joseph Conrad Quotes about Life

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

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.

Joseph Conrad

Life, Eye, Majority

Joseph Conrad (2015). “Greatest Works of Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, The Duel, Lord Jim, Victory, The Shadow-Line, The Arrow of Gold, The Secret Agent, The Nigger of the Narcissus & Under Western Eyes: Classics of World Literature from One of the Greatest English Novelists (Including Author’s Memoirs, Letters & Critical Essays)”, p.185, e-artnow

Perhaps life is just that... a dream and a fear.

Joseph Conrad

Life, Dream, Fear

"Under Western Eyes". Book by Joseph Conrad, pt. IV, ch. 2, 1911.

There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.

Joseph Conrad

Life, Ocean, Army

Joseph Conrad (1905). “Lord Jim”, p.7, McClure, Phillips & Company

Droll thing life is -- that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself -- that comes too late -- a crop of inextinguishable regrets.

Joseph Conrad

Life, Regret, Knowledge

Joseph Conrad (2006). “Heart of Darkness and Other Stories”, p.120, Collector's Library

A man is a worker. If he is not that he is nothing.

Joseph Conrad

Life, Success, Work

Joseph Conrad, J. H. Stape, Andrew Busza (2004). “Notes on Life and Letters”, p.150, Cambridge University Press

But it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker - may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling!

Joseph Conrad

Life, Clouds, Lightning

"Heart of Darkness and Other Stories".

The last thing a woman will consent to in a man whom she loves, or on whom she simply depends, is want of courage.

Joseph Conrad

Life, Courage, Men

Joseph Conrad, Book House (2016). “Joseph Conrad: The Complete Novels [Nostromo, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, etc.] (Book House)”, p.1870, Book House

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.

Joseph Conrad

Life, Nature, Men

Joseph Conrad (1905). “Lord Jim”, p.207, McClure, Phillips & Company

Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love - and to put its trust in life.

Joseph Conrad

Love, Life, Trust

Joseph Conrad (2015). “Greatest Works of Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, The Duel, Lord Jim, Victory, The Shadow-Line, The Arrow of Gold, The Secret Agent, The Nigger of the Narcissus & Under Western Eyes: Classics of World Literature from One of the Greatest English Novelists (Including Author’s Memoirs, Letters & Critical Essays)”, p.670, e-artnow

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.

Joseph Conrad

Life, Dream, Essence

Heart of Darkness ch. 1 (1902)

Only in men's imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.

Joseph Conrad

Life, Art, Writing

Some Reminiscences ch. 1 (1912)

A train of thought is never false. The falsehood lies deep in the necessities of existence.

Joseph Conrad

Life, Lying, Train Of Thought

Joseph Conrad (2015). “The Complete Works of Joseph Conrad: 20 Novels & 26 Short Stories (Including Memoirs, Essays & Letters in One Single Edition): Classics of World Literature from One of the Greatest English Novelists: Heart of Darkness, The Duel, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, The Shadow-Line & Under Western Eyes”, p.2294, e-artnow

There are men here and there to whom the whole of life is like an after-dinner hour with a cigar; easy, pleasant, empty, perhaps enlivened by some fable of strife to be forgotten - before the end is told - even if there happens to be any end to it.

Joseph Conrad

Life, Men, Here And There

Joseph Conrad (1905). “Lord Jim”, p.31, McClure, Phillips & Company