Just some quotes

"He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense."

"I had ambition not only to go farther than any man had ever been before, but as far as it was possible for a man to go."

"Only in men's imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life."

"Some great men owe most of their greatness to the ability of detecting in those they destine for their tools the exact quality of strength that matters for their work."

"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. "

"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. "

"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. "

"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."

"A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea. If he tries to climb out into the air as inexperienced people endeavour to do, he drowns."

"A man's most open actions have a secret side to them."

These are all quotes from Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, better known as Joseph Conrad. If the name doesn't ring a bell, the fruits of his writing might do. One of the best known is the movie "Apocalypse Now". A more complete selection of his heritance can be found on IMDB.

Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, a Polish novelist, was born in 1857 and died in 1924.