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

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
Threat
Placate
Truly
Bribes
Alone
Inasmuch
Cannot
Bribe
Threats
Persuasion
Terrifying
Madness

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Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.
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But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself and, by heavens I tell you, it had gone mad.
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Joy and sorrow in this world pass into each other, mingling their forms and their murmurs in the twilight of life as mysterious as an overshadowed ocean, while the dazzling brightness of supreme hopes lies far off, fascinating and still, on the distant edge of the horizon
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Beyond the fence the forest stood up spectrally in the moonlight, and through the dim stir, through the faint sounds of that lamentable courtyard, the silence of the land went home to one's very heart - its mystery, its greatness, the amazing reality of its concealed life.
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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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Even extreme grief may ultimately vent itself in violence--but more generally takes the form of apathy
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They had behind them, to my mind, the terrific suggestiveness of words heard in dreams, of phrases spoken in nightmares.
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To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.
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Hang ideas! They are tramps, vagabonds, knocking at the back-door of your mind, each taking a little of your substance, each carrying away some crumb of that belief in a few simple notions you must cling to if you want to live decently and would like to die easy!
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Danger lies in the writer becoming the victim of his own exaggeration, losing the exact notion of sincerity, and in the end coming to despise truth itself as something too cold, too blunt for his purpose -- as, in fact, not good enough for his insistent emotion. From laughter and tears the descent is easy to sniveling and giggles.
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The ocean has the conscienceless temper of a savage autocrat spoiled by much adulation
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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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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.
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We can never cease to be ourselves.
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You can't breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence.
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For a time I would feel I belonged still to a world of straightforward facts but the feeling would not last long. Something would turn up to scare it away.
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Who would care to question the ground of forgiveness or compassion.
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Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.
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A man is a worker. If he is not that he is nothing.
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I like what is in the work -- the chance to find yourself.
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