Quote

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.

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
Would
Air
Breathes
Kill
Ink
Paper
Endeavour
Hope
Supremacy
Fear
Bureaucracy
Anything
Alike
Human
Atmosphere
Humans
Breathe
Extinguish

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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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I like what is in the work -- the chance to find yourself.
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The artist in his calling of interpreter creates because he must. He is so much of a voice that, for him, silence is like death
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... it was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.
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We can never cease to be ourselves.
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Writing in English is like throwing mud at a wall.
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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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All one's work might have been better done but this is a sort of reflection a worker must put aside courageously if he doesn't mean every one of his conceptions to remain forever a private vision, an evanescent reverie.
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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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Perhaps life is just that... a dream and a fear.
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Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time.
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Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please.
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Violence is not a catalyst but a diversion.
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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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Going home must be like going to render an account.
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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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It would take too long to explain the intimate alliance of contradictions in human nature which makes love itself wear at times the desperate shape of betrayal. And perhaps there is no possible explanation.
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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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The vision seemed to enter the house with me-the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshippers, the gloom of the forests, the glitter of the reach between the murky bends, the beat of the drum, regular and muffled like the beating of a heart-the heart of a conquering darkness.
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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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