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He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.

Joseph Conrad

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Joseph Conrad
Age: 66 †
Born: 1857
Born: December 3
Died: 1924
Died: August 3
Author
Autobiographer
Essayist
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Berdichev
Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski
Greater
Persuasion
Word
Propaganda
Sound
Arguing
Sense
Argument
Power
Intelligence
Right
Trust
Always
Wants
Persuading
Wisdom
Persuade

More quotes by Joseph Conrad

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Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you, smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, Come and find out.
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You can't, in sound morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It is his clear duty.
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The artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition-and therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives to our sense of pity, and beauty and pain.
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Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end.
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The atmosphere of officialdom would kill anything that breathes the air of human endeavour, would extinguish hope and fear alike in the supremacy of paper and ink.
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The hair of his face, on the contrary, carroty and flaming, resembled a growth of copper wire clipped short to the line of the lip while, no matter how close he shaved, fiery metallic gleams passed, when he moved his head, over the surface of his cheeks.
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Things and men have always a certain sense, a certain side by which they must be got hold of if one wants to obtain a solid grasp and a perfect command.
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We can never cease to be ourselves.
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One wonders that there can be found a man courageous enough to occupy the post. It is a matter of meditation. Having given it a few minutes I come to the conclusion in the serenity of my heart and the peace of my conscience that he must be either an extreme megalomaniac or an utterly unconscious being.
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In plucking the fruit of memory one runs the risk of spoiling its bloom, especially if it has got to be carried into the market.
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To be busy with material affairs is the best preservative against reflection, fears, doubts ... all these things which stand in the way of achievement. I suppose a fellow proposing to cut his throat would experience a sort of relief while occupied in stropping his razor carefully.
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The good author is he who contemplates without marked joy or excessive sorrow the adventures of his soul amongst criticisms.
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There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.
Joseph Conrad
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Ah! These commercial interests -- spoiling the finest life under the sun. Why must the sea be used for trade -- and for war as well?...It would have been so much nicer just to sail about, with here and there a port and a bit of land to stretch one's legs on, buy a few books and get a change of cooking for a while.
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There is a kind way of assisting our fellow-creatures which is enough to break their hearts while it saves their outer envelope.
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What is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow men's existence strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history.
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Art is long and life is short, and success is very far off.
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I take it that what all men are really after is some form or perhaps only some formula of peace.
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My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see.
Joseph Conrad
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History repeats itself, but the special call of an art which has passed away is never reproduced. It is as utterly gone out of the world as the song of a destroyed wild bird.
Joseph Conrad