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Joseph Conrad Quotes (1857-1924)
Writer, King, Novelist
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About Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad (3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Polish writer, working in England, regarded as one of the greatest novelists in the English language.
Best Joseph Conrad Quotes
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful Joseph Conrad quotes.
“To the destruction of what is.”
“Let a fool be made serviceable according to his folly.”
“Protection is the first necessity of opulence and luxury.”
“The air of the New World seems favorable to the art of declamation.”
“Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.”
“Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men.”
“This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak.”
“Nations it may be have fashioned their Governments, but the Governments have paid them back in the same coin.”
“One must have lived on such diet to discover what ghastly trouble the necessity of swallowing one's food become.”
Joseph Conrad Quotes by Topic
Find exactly what you are looking for by browsing this categorized list of Joseph Conrad quotes by topic.
Joseph Conrad on Outcast (person)
Joseph Conrad on Peace
Joseph Conrad on Crime
“The real significance of crime is in its being a breach of faith with the community of mankind.”
Joseph Conrad on Significance
“The real significance of crime is in its being a breach of faith with the community of mankind.”
Joseph Conrad on Credulity
“All ambitions are lawful except those that climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.”
Joseph Conrad on Love
Joseph Conrad on Evil
“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.”
Joseph Conrad on Existence
“To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.”
Joseph Conrad on Finance
“The world of finance is a mysterious world in which, incredible as the fact may appear, evaporation precedes liquidation.”
Joseph Conrad on Deference
Joseph Conrad on Artist
“An artist is a man of action, whether he creates a personality, invents an expedient, or finds the issue of a complicated situation.”
What Joseph Conrad Said About Others
Discover personal opinions Joseph Conrad shared regarding contemporaries.
Joseph Conrad on Hugh Walpole
“Of the general soundness of Mr. Walpole's work I am firmly convinced. He is distinctly a man of his time. We see him grappling with the truth of things spiritual and material with his usual earnestness, and we can discern the characteristics of this acute and sympathetic explorer of human nature.”
Joseph Conrad on Women
“It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there has never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over.”
Quotes About Joseph Conrad
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about Joseph Conrad from others.
Chinua Achebe on Joseph Conrad
“Well there is an assumption there that Conrad's...Heart of Darkness is great art and I don't accept that. Great art flourishes on problems or anguish or prejudice. But the role of the writer must be very clear. The writer must not be on the side of oppression. In other words there must be no confusion. I write about prejudice; I write about wickedness; I write about murder, I write about rape: but I must not be caught on the side of murder or rape. It is as simple as that.”
Joan Didion interview quoted on Joseph Conrad
“maybe my favorite book in the world...I have never started a novel...without rereading Victory. It opens up the possibilities of a novel. It makes it seem worth doing.”
Ernest Hemingway on Joseph Conrad
“It is fashionable among my friends to disparage [Conrad]. It is even necessary. Living in a world of literary politics where one wrong opinion often proves fatal, one writes carefully.... It is agreed by most of the people I know that Conrad is a bad writer, just as it is agreed that T. S. Eliot is a good writer. And now he is dead and I wish to God they would have taken some great, acknowledged technician of a literary figure and left him to write his bad stories.”
D.H. Lawrence on Joseph Conrad
“Melville doesn't sentimentalize the ocean and the sea's unfortunates. Snivel in a wet hanky like Lord Jim.”
Azar Nafisi on Joseph Conrad
“I think some of the greatest writing has been also about writers like Conrad or Nabokov, who have illuminated and given us fresh views about the new countries they adopted.”
Muriel Rukeyser on Joseph Conrad
“Only the essential is true; Joseph Conrad, in a letter of advice, drives this home by recommending deletions, explaining that these words are "not essential and therefore not true to the fact."”
Stephen Reynolds on Joseph Conrad
“They are very fascinating and very terrible, these tales of Conrad's in which he brings civilisation to the judgment of nature, and causes it to shake like a withering tree.”
Misattributed Quotes
Quotes mistakenly credited to Joseph Conrad
About Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad (3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Polish writer, working in England, regarded as one of the greatest novelists in the English language.