Joseph Conrad

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

The sea never changes and its works, for all the talk of men, are wrapped in mystery.

All idealization makes life poorer. To beautify it is to take away its character of complexity — it is to destroy it.

Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! . . . The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires.

They wanted facts. Facts! They demanded facts from him, as if facts could explain anything.

Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory.

History repeats itself, but the special call of an art which has passed away is never reproduced. It is as utterly gone out of the world as the song of a destroyed wild bird.