Joseph Conrad - Work Quotes

9 Sourced Quotes

View all Joseph Conrad Quotes
Some great men owe most of their greatness to the ability of detecting in those they destine for their tools the exact quality of strength that matters for their work.

Joseph Conrad
I don't like work — no man does — but I like what is in the work — the chance to find yourself. Your own reality — for yourself, not for others — what no other man can ever know.

Joseph Conrad
A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.

Joseph Conrad
Efficiency of a practically flawless kind may be reached naturally in the struggle for bread. But there is something beyond — a higher point, a subtle and unmistakable touch of love and pride beyond mere skill; almost an inspiration which gives to all work that finish which is almost art — which is art.

Joseph Conrad
The more I write the less substance do I see in my work, … It is tolerably awful. And I face it, I face it but the fright is growing on me. My fortitude is shaken by the view of the monster. It does not move; its eyes are baleful; it is as still as death itself — and it will devour me. Its stare has eaten into my soul already deep, deep.

Joseph Conrad
He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is detestable. And it has a fascination, too, which goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination—you know.

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

Joseph Conrad
I am a great foe to favoritism in public life, in private life, and even in the delicate relationship of an author to his works.

Joseph Conrad
All one's work might have been better done; but this is a sort of reflection a worker must put aside courageously if he doesn't mean every one of his conceptions to remain forever a private vision, an evanescent reverie.

Joseph Conrad