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

— Joseph Conrad The Secret Agent (1907)

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More quotes by 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.

Typhoon (1902)

An artist is a man of action, whether he creates a personality, invents an expedient, or finds the issue of a complicated situation.

The Mirror of the Sea (1906)

It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose.

An Outcast of the Islands (1896)

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

Under Western Eyes (1911)

All Joseph Conrad quotes →

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Joseph Conrad (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.