Joseph Conrad quotes

We live, as we dream—alone...

— Spoken by a character · I

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.

— Spoken by a character · I

‘The horror! The horror!’

— Spoken by a character · III

‘Mistah Kurtz—he dead.’

— Spoken by a character · III

The mind of man is capable of anything—because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future.

— Spoken by a character · II

I did not betray Mr. Kurtz—it was ordered I should never betray him—it was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.

— Spoken by a character · III

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.

— Spoken by a character · I

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.

— Spoken by a character · II

We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember because we were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign—and no memories.

— Spoken by a character · II

It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core....

— Spoken by a character · III

We can never cease to be ourselves.

Madness alone is truly terrifying, inasmuch as you cannot placate it either by threats, persuasion, or bribes.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter II

I am afraid that if you want to go down into history you’ll have to do something for it.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter VII

All idealisation makes life poorer. To beautify it is to take away its character of complexity—it is to destroy it.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter III

But there are more kinds of fools than one can guard against.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter IV

The condemned social order has not been built up on paper and ink, and I don’t fancy that a combination of paper and ink will ever put an end to it, whatever you may think.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter IV

Curiosity being one of the forms of self-revelation, a systematically incurious person remains always partly mysterious.

His instinct of a successful man had taught him long ago that, as a general rule, a reputation is built on manner as much as on achievement.

Nobody looked at him. He passed on unsuspected and deadly, like a pest in the street full of men.

For history is made with tools, not with ideas; and everything is changed by economic conditions—art, philosophy, love, virtue—truth itself!