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"His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked at him as you peer down at a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines."
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"Good God. Men everywhere."

"She was a most wonderful woman for prowling about the house. How she got from story to story was a mystery beyond solution. A lady so decorous in herself, and so highly connected, was not to be suspected of dropping over the banisters or sliding down them, yet her extraordinary facility of locomotion suggested the wild idea. Another noticeable circumstance in Mrs. Sparsit was, that she was never hurried. She would shoot with consummate velocity from the roof to the hall, yet would be in full possession of her breath and dignity on the moment of her arrival there. Neither was she ever seen by human vision to go at a great pace."

"Right now, it's hard to imagine that it is raining anywhere in the world."

"The surveillance, he thought, essentially should be maintained. And, if possible, by me. I should always be watching, watching and figuring out, even if I never do anything about what I see; even if I just sit there and observe silently, not seen: that is important, that I as a watcher of all that happens should be at my place."

"You can't go by what a girl says, when she's giving you the devil for making a chump of yourself. It's like Shakespeare. Sounds well, but doesn't mean anything."

"At any rate I'd better be getting out of the wood, for really its coming on very dark. Do you think it's going to rain?'Tweedledum spread a large umbrella over himself and his brother, and looked up into it.'No, I don't think it is,' he said: 'at least - not under here. Nohow.''But it may rain outside?''It may - if it chooses,' said Tweedledee: 'we've got no objection. Contrariwise."

"When I heard the learn'd astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars."

"On the single strand of wire strung to bring our house electricity, grackles and starlings neatly punctuated an invisible sentence."

"I've often been sorry to see a night end, even while I have loved seeing the dawn come."

"Y por que el sol es tan mal amigodel caminante en el desierto?Y por que el sol es tan simpaticoen el jardin del hospital?And why is the sun such a bad companionto the traveler in the desert?And why is the sun so congenial in the hospital garden?"
Explore more quotes by Joseph Conrad

"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?"

"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."

"The sea - this truth must be confessed - has no generosity. No display of manly qualities - courage, hardihood, endurance, faithfulness - has ever been known to touch its irresponsible consciousness of power."

"This grimy fragment of another world, the forerunner of change, of conquest, of trade, of massacres, of blessings....the merry dance of death and trade goes on."

"If you want to know the age of the Earth-look upon the sea in a storm. But what storm can fully reveal the heart of a man? Between Suez and the China Sea are many nameless men who prefer to live and die unknown. This is the story of one such man. Among the great gallery of rogues and heroes thrown up on the beaches and ports-no man was more respected or more damned than-Lord Jim."

"And for a moment it seemed to me as if I also were buried in a vast grave full of unspeakable secrets."

"This man suffered too much. He hated all this, and somehow he couldn't get away. When I had a chance I begged him to try and leave while there was time; I offered to go back with him. And he would say yes, and then he would remain..."

"They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force--nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others."
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