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Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time.

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
Boat
Carry
Fool
Wise
Shorten
Funny
Nautical
Inspirational
Yacht
Men
Sailing
Time
Sail

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Being myself animated by feelings of affection toward my fellowmen, I am saddened by the modern system of advertising. Whatever evidence it offers of enterprise, ingenuity, impudence, and resource in certain individuals, it proves to my mind the wide prevalence of that form of mental degradation which is called gullibility.
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There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.
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A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.
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It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose.
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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.
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Everything belonged to him. It made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst into prodigious peal of laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their places.
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Lights of ships moved in the fairway-a great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars.
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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.
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The very young have, properly speaking, no moments. It is the privilege of early youth to live in advance of its days in all the beautiful continuity of hope which knows no pauses and no introspection.
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A man is a worker. If he is not that he is nothing.
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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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The conquest of the earth... is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only... not a sentimental pretence but an idea.
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Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please.
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It is when we try to grapple with another man's intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering, and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun.
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It is not Justice the servant of men, but accident, hazard, Fortune-the ally of patient Time-that holds an even and scrupulous balance.
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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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As a general rule, a reputation is built on manner as much as on achievement.
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He hated all this, and somehow he couldn't get away.
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Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.
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Writing in English is like throwing mud at a wall.
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