*

¡Es curiosa la vida... ese misterioso arreglo de lógica implacable con propósitos fútiles! Lo más que de ella se puede esperar es cierto conocimiento de uno mismo... que llega demasiado tarde... una cosecha de inextinguibles remordimientos. He luchado a brazo partido con la muerte. Es la contienda menos estimulante que podéis imaginar. Tiene lugar en un gris impalpable, sin nada bajo los pies, sin nada alrededor, sin espectadores, sin clamor, sin gloria, sin un gran deseo de victoria, sin un gran temor a la derrota, en una atmósfera enfermiza de tibio escepticismo, sin demasiada fe en los propios derechos, y aún menos en los del adversario. Si tal es la forma de la última sabiduría, la vida es un enigma mayor de lo que alguno de nosotros piensa.

—El corazón de las tinieblas.
Joseph Conrad.

*

Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision,—he cried out twice, a cry that was no more that a breath—
“‘The horror! The horror!’

—Heart of Darkness.
Joseph Conrad.

*

No, they did not bury me, though there is a period of time which I remember mistily, with a shuddering wonder, like a passage through some inconceivable world that had no hope in it and no desire.

—Heart of Darkness.
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 unextinguishable regrets.

—Heart of Darkness.
Joseph Conrad.

*

 Rebels! What would be the next definition I was to hear? There had been enemies, criminals, workers—and these were rebels. Those rebellious heads looked very subdued to me on their sticks.

—Heart of Darkness.
Joseph Conrad.

*

I observed with assumed innocence that no man was safe from trouble in this world.

—Heart of Darkness.
Joseph Conrad.

*

No, I don’t like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. 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. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.

—Heart of Darkness.
Joseph Conrad.

*

The mind is capable of anything—because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage — who can tell?—but truth—truth stripped of its cloak of time.

—Heart of Darkness.
Joseph Conrad.

*

It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream–making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams. . . ."
He as silent for a while.
". . . No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence,–that which makes its truth, its meaning–its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream–alone. . . ."

—Heart of Darkness.
Joseph Conrad.

*

You know I hate, detest, and can't bear a lie, not because I am straighter that the rest of us, but simply because it appals me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies,–which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world–what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do.

—Heart of Darkness.
Joseph Conrad.