Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties (and then always with a marked Polish accent). He wrote stories and novels, predominantly with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit by the demands of duty and honour. Conrad was a master prose stylist who brought a distinctly non-English tragic sensibility into English literature.
Above all, we must forgive the unhappy souls who have elected to make the pilgrimage on foot, who skirt the shore and look uncomprehendingly upon the horror of the struggle, the joy of victory, the profound hopelessness of the vanquished.
It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose.
What makes mankind tragic is not that they are the victims of nature, it is that they are conscious of it.
Running all over the sea trying to get behind the weather.
The sea never changes and its works, for all the talk of men, are wrapped in mystery.
Facing it — always facing it — that's the way to get through.
The future is of our own making — and (for me) the most striking characteristic of the century is just that development, that maturing of our consciousness which should open our eyes to that truth.