Joseph Conrad

"Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of illusions. "

"All a man can betray is his conscience. "

"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. "

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

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

"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. "

"I take it that what all men are really after is some form or perhaps only some formula of peace. "

"Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow. "

"It is to be remarked that a good many people are born curiously unfitted for the fate waiting them on this earth. "

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. "

"The last thing a woman will consent to discover in a man whom she loves, or on whom she simply depends, is want of courage. "

"The mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. "

"The way of even the most jusitifiable revolution is prepared by personal impulses disguised into creeds. "

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

"Words, as is well known, are great foes of reality. "

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