Joseph Conrad

"Droll thing life is -- that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself -- that comes too late -- a crop of inextinguish…"

"For all that has been said of the love that certain natures have professed to feel for it, for all the celebrations it had been the object of in prose and song, the sea has never been friendly to man.…"

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

"A man's real life is that accorded to him in the thoughts of other men by reason of respect or natural love."

"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."

"He remembered that she was pretty, and, more, that she had a special grace in the intimacy of life. She had the secret of individuality which excites — and escapes."

"Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men."

"To see! to see! — this is the craving of the sailor, as of the rest of blind humanity. To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous exist…"