heart of darkness quotes Flashcards
(109 cards)
“The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails”
“luminous space”
“biggest, and the greatest, town on Earth”
“Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin– the great knights-errant of the sea. It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time–from the Golden Hind to the Erebus and Terror”
“the very mist on the Essex marshes”
“They had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, from Erith”
“We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the august light of abiding memories”
“the spark from the sacred fire. The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires”
“The Director of Companies was our captain and our host…He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified”
“The Lawyer–the best of old fellows”
“the bond of the sea, besides holding our hearts together through long periods of separation, it had the effect of making us tolerant of each other’s yarns”
“He had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, resembled an idol”
“the worst that could be said of him was that he did not represent his class”
“for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny.”
“to him, the meaning of an episode wa snot inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze,”
“darkness was here yesterday”
“the very end of the world, a sea the color of lead, a sky the color of smoke”
“sandbanks, marshes, forests, savages”
“They were no colonists, their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors”
“What redeems it is the idea only, An idea at the back of–something you can set up, bow down before and offer a sacrifice to..”
“When I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth”
“It fascinated me as a snake would a bird”
“The snake had charmed me”
“the original quarrel arose from a misunderstanding about some hens. Yes, two black hens. Fresleven–that was the fellows name, a Dane–thought himself wronged somehow in the bargain”
“he had been a couple of years already out there engaged in the noble cause, you know, and he probably felt the need at last of asserting his self-respect in some way”
“he whacked the old nigger mercilessly”
“made a tentative jab with a spear at the white man”
“What became of the hens I don’t know either”
“However, through this glorious affair I got my appointment”
“The grass growing through his ribs was tall enough to hide his bones. The supernatural being had not been touched after he fell”
“He had tied a bit of white worsted round his neck–Why? Where did he get it? Was it a badge–an ornament–a charm?
“In a very few hours I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a whited sepulcher”
“A narrow and deserted street in deep shadow, high houses, innumerable windows with venetian blinds, a dead silence”
“she turned round without a word and preceded me into a waiting-room”
“The slim one got up and walked straight at me–still knitting with downcast eyes, I began to think of getting out of her way just as you would for a somnambulist. She turned round without a word and preceded me into a waiting-room”
“the swift and indifferent placidity of that look troubled me”
“I began to feel slightly uneasy. Two youths with foolish and cheery countenances were being piloted over”
“From behind that structure came out an impression of pale plumpness in a frock-coat. The great man himself. He was five feet six, I should judge”
“his cravat was large and billowy, under a chin shaped like the toe of an old boot”
“he was an unshaven little man in a threadbare coat like a gaberdine, with his feet in sleepers”
“‘Ever any madness in your family?’ he asked, in a matter-of-fact tone. I felt very annoyed. ‘Is that question in the interests of science too?’ ‘It would be’, he said without taking notice of my irritation.”
“Pardon my questions, but you are the first Englishman coming under my observation…’ I hastened to assure him I was not in the least typical”
“It appeared, however, I was also one of the Workers, with a capital–you know. Something like an emissary of light”
“I don’t like work–no man does–but I like what is in the work–the chance to find yourself. Your own reality–for yourself-not for,others”
“We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritence, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil”
“‘You forget, dear Charlie, that the laborer is worthy of his hire’ She said, brightly. It’s queer how out of touch with truth women are.”
“We must help them to stay in that beautiful world of their own, lest ours gets worse”
“I left in a French steamer”
“The idleness of a passenger, my isolation amongst all these men with whom I had no point of contact”
“The voice of the surf heard now and then was a positive pleasure, like the speech of a brother”
“Their bodies streamed with perspiration; they had bone, muscle, a wild vitality an intense energy of movement.”
“I had a white companion too, not a bad chap, but rather too fleshy and with the exasperating habit of fainting on the hot hillsides”
“Pop, would go one of the eight-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech–and nothing happened”
“A heavy and dull detonation shook the ground, a puff of smoke came out of the cliff. No change appeared on the face of the rock. They were building a railway. The cliff was not in the way or anything; but this objectless blasting was all the work going on”
“these men could by no stretch of imagination be called enemies. They were called criminals, and the outraged law,”
