Victory by Joseph Conrad, Part I

Aphorism 30: “Victory, the shinning goal of noble effort!” page vii

Aphorism 31: “Thinking, the great enemy of perfection!” page X

Aphorism 32: “Inspiration is sometimes just getting out of the way!” page X

Aphorism 33: “Unperturbed polite interest!”

Full Quote: “Morrison was swiftly reproachful in his answer, and there came a pause, Morrison perhaps interrogating his conscience and Heyst preserving a mien of unperturbed, polite interest.” P. 13. The Modern Library, Doubleday, NY, 1921.

Aphorism 34: “God expects men to be self-reliant!”

Full Quote: “I believe in children praying—well women, too, but I rather think God expects men to be more self-reliant.” P. 13

Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad, Part One

Aphorism Ten: “Possess ability in the abstract!”

Full Quote: “When a water-clerk who possesses ability in the abstract has also the advantage of having been brought up to the sea, he is worth to his employer a lot of money and some humouring.” Harper & Row, Perennial Classics, 1965 (1899), p. 4.

Aphorism Eleven: “Seek a lower achievement if it will do the turn!”

Full Quote: “Otherwise he was rather glad he had not gone into the cutter, since a lower achievement had served the turn.” P. 7

Aphorism Twelve: “We determine our own moral identity!”

Full Quote: “It was solemn, and a little ridiculous, too, as they always are, those struggles of an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what his moral identity should be…” p. 58.

Aphorism Thirteen: “There are as many shipwrecks as there are men!”

Full Quote: “Of course, as with belief, though, love, hate, conviction, or even the visual aspect of material things, there are as many shipwrecks as there are men..” p. 86.