We return to face our superiors, our kindred, our friends--- those whom we obey, and those whom we love; but even they who have neither, the most free, lonely, irresponsible and bereft of ties, --- even those for whom home holds no dear face, no familiar voice, --- even they have to meet the spirit that dwells within the land, under its sky, in its air, in its valleys, and on its rises, in its fields, in its waters and its tress--- a mute friend, judge, and inspired. Say what you like, to get its joy, to breathe its peace, to face its truth, one must return with a clear conscience. All this may seem to your sheer sentimentalism; and indeed very few of us have the will or capacity to look consciously under the surface of familiar emotions. There are the girls we love, the men we look up to, the tenderness, the friendships, the opportunities, the pleasures! But the fact remains that you must touch your reward with clean hands, lest it turn to dead leaves, to thorns, in your grasp.

— Joseph Conrad

We wander in our thousands over the face of the earth, the illustrious and the obscure, earning beyond theses our fame, our money, or only a crust of bread; but it seems to me that for each of us going home must be like going to render an account.

— Joseph Conrad

We wander in our thousands over the face of the earth, the illustrious and the obscure, earning beyond theses our fame, our money, or only a crust of bread; but it seems to me that for each of us going home must be like going to render an account. We return to face our superiors, our kindred, our friends--those whom we obey, and those whom we love; but even they who have neither, the most free, lonely, irresponsible and bereft of ties,--even those for whom home holds no dear face, no familiar voice,--even they have to meet the spirit that dwells within the land, under its sky, in its air, in its valleys, and on its rises, in its fields, in its waters and its trees--acute friend, judge, and inspired.

— Joseph Conrad

We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, of an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend, there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling, under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us - who could tell? We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse.

— Joseph Conrad

What makes mankind tragic is not that they are the victims of nature, it is that they are conscious of it.

— Joseph Conrad

Whether he knew of this deficiency himself I can't say. I think the knowledge came to him at last--only at the very last. But the wilderness found him out early, and had taken vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude--and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core

— Joseph Conrad

Who knows what true loneliness is - not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion.

— Joseph Conrad

Who would care to question the ground of forgiveness or compassion?

— Joseph Conrad

Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love - and to put its trust in life.

— Joseph Conrad

Writing in English is like throwing mud at a wall.

— Joseph Conrad