The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Art2 quotes
A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line. — Joseph Conrad · 1897Art, it is said, is not a mirror, but a hammer: it does not reflect, it shapes. — Leon Trotsky · 1924Artist and audience2 quotes
One writes only half the book; the other half is with the reader. — Joseph Conrad · 1897My task... To make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see. That—and no more, and it is everything. — Joseph Conrad · 1897Animal cruelty1 quote
Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest. — Bion of Borysthenes · 100Anti-imperialism1 quote
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. — Joseph Conrad · 1899Artists1 quote
But the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom: to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition—and, therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives: to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain. — Joseph Conrad · 1897Carrots and sticks1 quote
Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement. — Leon Trotsky · 1932Causation1 quote
No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. — Stanislaw Lec · 1968Conscientious people1 quote
The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement—but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims. — Joseph Conrad · 1911Downsides of wealth1 quote
He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. — Bion of BorysthenesEffects of art1 quote
Art, it is said, is not a mirror, but a hammer: it does not reflect, it shapes. — Leon Trotsky · 1924Emotions1 quote
As you pass from the tender years of youth into harsh and embittered manhood, make sure you take with you on your journey all the human emotions! Don't leave them on the road, for you will not pick them up afterwards! — Nikolai Gogol · 1842End justifies the means1 quote
A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified. — Leon Trotsky · 1938Existential solitude1 quote
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. Now and then a fatal conjunction of events may lift the veil for an instant. For an instant only. No human being could bear a steady view of moral solitude without going mad. — Joseph Conrad · 1911God and man1 quote
A belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. — Joseph Conrad · 1911Growing up1 quote
As you pass from the tender years of youth into harsh and embittered manhood, make sure you take with you on your journey all the human emotions! Don't leave them on the road, for you will not pick them up afterwards! — Nikolai Gogol · 1842Human nature1 quote
A belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. — Joseph Conrad · 1911Hunger1 quote
No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze. — Joseph Conrad · 1899Hunger and desperation1 quote
No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze. — Joseph Conrad · 1899Imperialism1 quote
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. — Joseph Conrad · 1899Interpretation and analysis1 quote
One writes only half the book; the other half is with the reader. — Joseph Conrad · 1897Language1 quote
There is a weird power in a spoken word... And a word carries far—very far—deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space. — Joseph Conrad · 1900Loneliness1 quote
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. Now and then a fatal conjunction of events may lift the veil for an instant. For an instant only. No human being could bear a steady view of moral solitude without going mad. — Joseph Conrad · 1911Looking back1 quote
I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more—the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort—to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires—and expires, too soon, too soon—before life itself. — Joseph Conrad · 1898Man and animals1 quote
Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest. — Bion of Borysthenes · 100Men and women1 quote
Through his passion nature has given man into woman's hands, and the woman who does not know how to make him her subject, her slave, her toy, and how to betray him with a smile in the end is not wise. — Leopold von Sacher-Masoch · 1870Mistakes1 quote
It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes. — Joseph Conrad · 1896Moral progress1 quote
Is it progress if a cannibal uses knife and fork? — Stanislaw Lec · 1957Nature1 quote
The pebble
is a perfect creature
equal to itself
mindful of its limits
filled exactly
with a pebbly meaning — Zbigniew Herbert · 1966Old age1 quote
Old age is the harbor of all ills. — Bion of Borysthenes · 240