Joseph conrad

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

I don't like work... but I like what is in work - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - which no other man can ever know.

Truth of a modest sort I can promise you, and also sincerity. That complete, praiseworthy sincerity which, while it delivers one into the hands of one's enemies, is as likely as not to embroil one...

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

It is respectable to have no illusions, and safe, and profitable and dull.

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...

You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends.

You can't, in sound morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It is his clear duty.

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.

How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a specter through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its spectral throat?