Charles Marlow Quotes

“the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny.”

“Yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker—may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling!”

“The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.”

“What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea—something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to....”

“I wondered whether the stillness on the face of the immensity looking at us two were meant as an appeal or as a menace.”

“There were moments when one’s past came back to one, as it will sometimes when you have not a moment to spare for yourself;”

“After all, for a seaman, to scrape the bottom of the thing that’ s supposed to float all the time under his care is the unpardonable sin. No one may know of it, but you never forget the thump—eh? A blow on the very heart. You remember it, you dream of it, you wake up at night and think of it—years after—and go hot and cold all over.”