Joseph Conrad

“Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it.”

“Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.”

“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.”

“The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.”

“He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word.”

“The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.”

“An artist is a man of action, whether he creates a personality, invents an ingredient, or designs a dish. It is he who calls awareness into being, who gives shape to the shapeless.”

“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.”

“We live as we dream--alone.”

“I don't like work--no man does--but I like what is in the work--the chance to find yourself.”

“The mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future.”

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.”

“It is not the clear-sighted who rule the world. Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm fog.”

“The horror! The horror!”

“All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.”

“Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.”

“A man is a worker. If he is not that he is nothing.”

“Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everybody enjoys.”