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December 3

day of the year

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2003
I have never let my schooling get in the way of my education. ~ Mark Twain
2004
The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people is the greatest and only safety in a sane society. ~ Emma Goldman
2005
All idealization makes life poorer. To beautify it is to take away its character of complexity - it is to destroy it. ~ Joseph Conrad in The Secret Agent (born 3 December 1857)
2006
There is no credulity so eager and blind as the credulity of covetousness, which, in its universal extent, measures the moral misery and the intellectual destitution of mankind. ~ Joseph Conrad
2007
All creative art is magic, is evocation of the unseen in forms persuasive, enlightening, familiar and surprising, for the edification of mankind, pinned down by the conditions of its existence to the earnest consideration of the most insignificant tides of reality. ~ Joseph Conrad
2008
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. ~ Joseph Conrad
2009
He who wants to persuade should put his trust, not in the right argument, but in the right word. ~ Joseph Conrad
2010
The changing wisdom of successive generations discards ideas, questions facts, demolishes theories. 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; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation — and to the subtle but invincible, conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts: to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all humanity — the dead to the living and the living to the unborn. ~ Joseph Conrad in The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'
2011
Truth shall prevail — don't you know Magna est veritas . . . Yes, when it gets a chance. There is a law, no doubt — and likewise a law regulates your luck in the throwing of dice. It is not Justice — the servant of men, but accident, hazard, Fortune — the ally of patient Time — that holds an even and scrupulous balance. ~ Joseph Conrad in Lord Jim
2012
My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation, fear, charm — all you demand; and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.
~ Joseph Conrad ~
in
~ The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' ~
2013
Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality. I have been for many years a teacher of languages. It is an occupation which at length becomes fatal to whatever share of imagination, observation, and insight an ordinary person may be heir to. To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot
~ Joseph Conrad ~
in
~ The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' ~
2014
The mind of man 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. Let the fool gape and shudder — the man knows, and can look on without a wink.
~ Joseph Conrad ~
in
~ Heart of Darkness ~
2015
The last word is not said, — probably shall never be said. Are not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all our stammerings is of course our only and abiding intention? I have given up expecting those last words, whose ring, if they could only be pronounced, would shake both heaven and earth. There is never time to say our last word — the last word of our love, of our desire, faith, remorse, submissions, revolt. The heaven and the earth must not be shaken, I suppose — at least, not by us who know so many truths about either. My last words about Jim shall be few. I affirm he had achieved greatness; but the thing would be dwarfed in the telling, or rather in the hearing. Frankly, it is not my words that I mistrust but your minds. I could be eloquent were I not afraid you fellows had starved your imaginations to feed your bodies. I do not mean to be offensive; it is respectable to have no illusions — and safe — and profitable — and dull. Yet you, too, in your time must have known the intensity of life, that light of glamour created in the shock of trifles, as amazing as the glow of sparks struck from a cold stone — and as short-lived, alas!
~ Joseph Conrad ~
in
~ Lord Jim ~
2016
An artist is a man of action, whether he creates a personality, invents an expedient, or finds the issue of a complicated situation.
~ Joseph Conrad ~
2017
A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line. And art itself may be defined as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect. It is an attempt to find in its forms, in its colours, in its light, in its shadows, in the aspects of matter and in the facts of life, what of each is fundamental, what is enduring and essential — their one illuminating and convincing quality — the very truth of their existence.
~ Joseph Conrad ~
in
~ The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' ~
2018
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 existence.
~ Joseph Conrad ~
2019
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 ~
2020
The good author is he who contemplates without marked joy or excessive sorrow the adventures of his soul amongst criticisms.
~ Joseph Conrad ~
2021
Temperament, whether individual or collective, is not amenable to persuasion. All art, therefore, appeals primarily to the senses, and the artistic aim when expressing itself in written words must also make its appeal through the senses, if its high desire is to reach the secret spring of responsive emotions. It must strenuously aspire to the plasticity of sculpture, to the colour of painting, and to the magic suggestiveness of music — which is the art of arts. And it is only through complete, unswerving devotion to the perfect blending of form and substance; it is only through an unremitting, never-discouraged care for the shape and ring of sentences that an approach can be made to plasticity, to colour; and the light of magic suggestiveness may be brought to play for an evanescent instant over the commonplace surface of words: of the old, old words, worn thin, defaced by ages of careless usage.
~ Joseph Conrad ~
in
~ The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' ~
2022
You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends.
~ Joseph Conrad ~
in
~ Lord Jim ~
2023
It's extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it's just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome. Nevertheless, there can be but few of us who had never known one of these rare moments of awakening when we see, hear, understand ever so much — everything — in a flash — before we fall back again into our agreeable somnolence.
~ Joseph Conrad ~
in
~ Lord Jim ~
2024
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Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:

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Our business in this world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail, in good spirits. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson (date of death)

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson (date of death)

  • 3 ~ UDScott 23:09, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • 0, though very good, this one was already used in July 2004 ~ Kalki 00:17, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 15:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The truth is that there is no terror untempered by some great moral idea. ~ Jean-Luc Godard (born December 3, 1930)

All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl. ~ Jean-Luc Godard.

The cinema is truth twenty-four times per second. ~ Jean-Luc Godard.

Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most. ~ Ozzy Osbourne

  • 2 Zarbon 04:09, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 00:53, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same. ~ Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness

They talk of a man betraying his country, his friends, his sweetheart. There must be a moral bond first. All a man can betray is his conscience. ~ Joseph Conrad

It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose. ~ Joseph Conrad

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

I can't tell if a straw ever saved a drowning man, but I know that a mere glance is enough to make despair pause. For in truth we who are creatures of impulse are not creatures of despair. ~ Joseph Conrad

The men who could understand his silence were gone — those men who knew how to exist beyond the pale of life and within sight of eternity. They had been strong, as those are strong who know neither doubts nor hopes. They had been impatient and enduring, turbulent and devoted, unruly and faithful. Well-meaning people had tried to represent those men as whining over every mouthful of their food; as going about their work in fear of their lives. But in truth they had been men who knew toil, privation, violence, debauchery — but knew not fear, and had no desire of spite in their hearts. Men hard to manage, but easy to inspire; voiceless men — but men enough to scorn in their hearts the sentimental voices that bewailed the hardness of their fate. It was a fate unique and their own; the capacity to bear it appeared to them the privilege of the chosen! ~ Joseph Conrad in The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'

Art is long and life is short, and success is very far off. And thus, doubtful of strength to travel so far, we talk a little about the aim — the aim of art, which, like life itself, is inspiring, difficult — obscured by mists. It is not in the clear logic of a triumphant conclusion; it is not in the unveiling of one of those heartless secrets which are called the Laws of Nature. It is not less great, but only more difficult. ~ Joseph Conrad in The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'

To arrest, for the space of a breath, the hands busy about the work of the earth, and compel men entranced by the sight of distant goals to glance for a moment at the surrounding vision of form and colour, of sunshine and shadows; to make them pause for a look, for a sigh, for a smile — such is the aim, difficult and evanescent, and reserved only for a very few to achieve. But sometimes, by the deserving and the fortunate, even that task is accomplished. And when it is accomplished — behold! — all the truth of life is there: a moment of vision, a sigh, a smile — and the return to an eternal rest. ~ Joseph Conrad in The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'

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. I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable grayness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid skepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary. If such is the form of ultimate wisdom, then life is a greater riddle than some of us think it to be. ~ Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness

Nobody ever comes back from a "missing" ship to tell how hard was the death of the craft, and how sudden and overwhelming the last anguish of her men. Nobody can say with what thoughts, with what regrets, with what words on their lips they died. But there is something fine in the sudden passing away of these hearts from the extremity of struggle and stress and tremendous uproar—from the vast, unrestful rage of the surface to the profound peace of the depths, sleeping untroubled since the beginning of ages. ~ Joseph Conrad


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