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Book: Under Western Eyes
Quotes of Book: Under Western Eyes

Joseph Conrad _ Under Western Eyes
The last thing I want to tell you is this: in a real revolution-not a simple dynastic change or a mere reform of institutions-in a real revolution the best characters do not come to the front. A violent revolution falls into the hands of narrow-minded fanatics and of tyrannical hypocrites at first. Afterwards comes the turn of all the pretentious intellectual failures of the time. Such are the chiefs and the leaders. You will notice that I have left out the mere rogues. The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement-but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims: the victims of disgust, of disenchantment-often of remorse. Hopes grotesquely betrayed, ideals caricatured-that is the definition of revolutionary success. There have been in every revolution hearts broken by such successes. But enough of that. My meaning is that I don't want you to be a victim.
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Joseph Conrad _ Under Western Eyes
Yes, the sound of water, the voice of the wind - completely foreign to human passions. All the other sounds of this earth brought contamination to the solitude of a soul.
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Joseph Conrad _ Under Western Eyes
Everybody had to be thoroughly understood before being accepted.
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Joseph Conrad _ Under Western Eyes
In life, you see, there is not much choice. You have either to rot or to burn. And there is not one of us, painted or unpainted, that would not rather burn than rot.
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Joseph Conrad _ Under Western Eyes
I can't afford to despise anything. An absurdity may be the starting-point of the most dangerous complications.
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Joseph Conrad _ Under Western Eyes
I am quite willing to be the blind instrument of higher ends. To give one's life for the cause is nothing. But to have one's illusions destroyed - that is really almost more than one can bear."
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Joseph Conrad _ Under Western Eyes
To cut oneself entirely from one's kind is impossible. To live in a desert one must be a saint.
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Joseph Conrad _ Under Western Eyes
Everything is inconceivable. The whole world is inconceivable to the strict logic of ideas. And yet the world exists to our senses, and we exist in it. There must be a necessity superior to our conceptions.
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Joseph Conrad _ Under Western Eyes
The belief in a super natural sources of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
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Joseph Conrad _ Under Western Eyes
The man who says that he has no illusions has at least that one.
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Joseph Conrad _ Under Western Eyes
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.
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Joseph Conrad _ Under Western Eyes
Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.
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