A caricature is putting the face of a joke on the body of a truth.
Joseph Conrad

A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea. If he tries to climb out into the air as inexperienced people endeavor to do, he drowns.
Joseph Conrad

A man's most open actions have a secret side to them.
Joseph Conrad

A man's real life is that accorded to him in the thoughts of other men by reason of respect or natural love.
Joseph Conrad

A modern fleet of ships does not so much make use of the sea as exploit a highway.
Joseph Conrad

A word carries far, very far, deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space.
Joseph Conrad

Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.
Joseph Conrad

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

An artist is a man of action, whether he creates a personality, invents an expedient, or finds the issue of a complicated situation.
Joseph Conrad

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


As in political so in literary action a man wins friends for himself mostly by the passion of his prejudices and the consistent narrowness of his outlook.
Joseph Conrad

As to honor - you know - it's a very fine mediaeval inheritance which women never got hold of. It wasn't theirs.
Joseph Conrad

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

Criticism, that fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters.
Joseph Conrad

Don't you forget what's divine in the Russian soul and that's resignation.
Joseph Conrad

Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.
Joseph Conrad

Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it.
Joseph Conrad

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.
Joseph Conrad

Going home must be like going to render an account.
Joseph Conrad

Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everybody enjoys.
Joseph Conrad