The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

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...to the destructive element
submit yourself, and with the exertions of your hands and feet in the water make the deep, deep
sea keep you up.
‘Lord Jim’ (1900) ch. 20
You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends.
‘Lord Jim’ (1900) ch. 34
My task which I am trying to achieve is by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to
make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see. That—and no more, and it is everything.
‘The Nigger of the Narcissus’ (1897) preface
Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.
‘Nostromo’ (1904) pt. 1, ch. 6
It’s only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose.
‘Outcast of the Islands’ (1896) pt. 3, ch. 2
The terrorist and the policeman both come from the same basket.
‘The Secret Agent’ (1907) ch. 4
All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upwards on the miseries or credulities of
mankind.
‘Some Reminiscences’ (1912; in USA ‘A Personal Record’) preface
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 Reminiscences’ (1912) ch. 1
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.
‘Under Western Eyes’ (1911) pt. 2, ch. 3
A belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every
wickedness.
‘Under Western Eyes’ (1911) pt. 2, ch. 4
I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more—the feeling that I
could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to
joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort—to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of
life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold,
grows small, and expires—and expires, too soon, too soon—before life itself.
‘Youth’ (1902) p. 41
3.162 Shirley Conran 1932—
Life is too short to stuff a mushroom.
‘Superwoman’ (1975) p. 15