Quote

The blight of futility that lies in wait for men's speeches had fallen upon our conversation and made it a thing of empty sounds.

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
Sound
Wait
Thing
Empty
Made
Speech
Men
Lies
Blight
Conversation
Futility
Waiting
Speeches
Lying
Fallen
Upon
Sounds

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Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time.
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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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Everybody had to be thoroughly understood before being accepted.
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He hated all this, and somehow he couldn't get away.
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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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Give me the right word and the right accent and I will move the world.
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There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies.
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For all that has been said of the love that certain natures (on shore) have professed for it, for all the celebrations it has been the object of in prose and song, the sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.
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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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Madness alone is truly terrifying, inasmuch as you cannot placate it by threats, persuasion, or bribes.
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The ocean has the conscienceless temper of a savage autocrat spoiled by much adulation
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And suddenly I rejoiced in the great security of the sea as compared with the unrest of the land, in my choice of that untempted life presenting no disquieting problems, invested with an elementary moral beauty by the absolute straightforwardness of its appeal and by the singleness of its purpose.
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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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Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.
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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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The good author is he who contemplates without marked joy or excessive sorrow the adventures of his soul amongst criticisms.
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Writing in English is like throwing mud at a wall.
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Being a lady is a frightfully troublesome assignment, since it comprises mainly in managing men.
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Follow your bliss. Find where it is and don't be afraid to follow it.
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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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