Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I always went my own road and on my own legs where I had a mind to go
Follow your bliss. Find where it is and don't be afraid to follow it.
Give me the right word and the right accent and I will move the world.
I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more
Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time.
A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea.
It is respectable to have no illusions, and safe, and profitable and dull.
Don't you forget what's divine in the Russian soul and that's resignation.
Criticism, that fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters.
As a general rule, a reputation is built on manner as much as on achievement.
I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine.
He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable.
It is a maudlin and indecent verity that comes out through the strength of wine.
The true peace of God begins at any spot a thousand miles from the nearest land.
There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.
The vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience.
A modern fleet of ships does not so much make use of the sea as exploit a highway.
I can't imagine a human being so hard up for something to do as to quarrel with me.
A task, any task, undertaken in an adventurous spirit acquires the merit of romance.
I have a voice, too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced
And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth.
My task is to make you hear, feel and see. That and no more, and that is everything.
The sea never changes and its works, for all the talks of men, are wrapped in mystery.
The ocean has the conscienceless temper of a savage autocrat spoiled by much adulation
We live as we dream - alone. While the dream disappears, the life continues painfully.
I am afraid that if you want to go down into history you'll have to do something for it.
Yet, when one thinks of it, diplomacy without force is a but a rotten reed to lean upon.
She feared the unknown as we all do, and her ignorance made the unknown infinitely vast.
Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.
A certain simplicity of thought is common to serene souls at both ends of the social scale.
A train of thought is never false. The falsehood lies deep in the necessities of existence.
I do not know whether I have been a good seaman, but I know I have been a very faithful one.
The humblest craft that floats makes its appeal to a seaman by the faithfulness of her life.
Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.
The real significance of crime is in its being a breach of faith with the community of mankind.
Being a lady is a frightfully troublesome assignment, since it comprises mainly in managing men.
I take it that what all men are really after is some form or perhaps only some formula of peace.
The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.
I was constantly watching myself, my secret self, as dependent on my actions as my own personality
When one has got to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages--hate them to the death.
All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.
Necessity, they say, is mother of invention, but fear, too, is not barren of ingenious suggestions.
A word carries far, very far, deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space.
It occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility.
Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please.
You can't, in sound morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It is his clear duty.
Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end.
Even extreme grief may ultimately vent itself in violence--but more generally takes the form of apathy
I remember my youth... the feeling that I could last forever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men.
A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.