HEART OF DARKNESS QUOTES RACISM

“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.” – Marlow

“It is queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there has never been anything like it, and never can be.” – Marlow

“Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream—making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams.” – Marlow

“The thought of their humanity-like yours…Ugly…Ugly.” – Kurtz

“Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair.” – Marlow

“But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself, and, by heavens! I tell you, it had gone mad.” – Marlow

“The idea was in itself not unwholesome. It was slowly coming to me that it had been not unprosperous.” – Marlow

“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.” – Marlow

“Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings.” – Marlow

“The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our upward progress; and Kurtz’s life was running swiftly too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time.” – Marlow

“I looked at him, lost in astonishment. There he was before me, in motley, as though he had absconded from a troupe of mimes, enthusiastic, fabulous. His very existence was improbable, inexplicable, and altogether bewildering. He was an insoluble problem.” – Marlow

“You couldn’t tell, however, why that was, for as far as voice, manner, and appearance went, he was just like any other civilized being.” – Marlow

“I think the knowledge came to him at last—only at the very last. But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion.” – Marlow GOOD LEADER QUOTES SAYINGS

“I let him run on, this papier-mâché Mephistopheles, and it seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would find nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe.” – Marlow

“All his life was concentrated in that one moment of appeal, of prayer, to seek help, among unutterable thoughts of ruin and despair. Then I had to be practical.” – Marlow

“You should have heard him say, ‘My ivory.’ Oh, yes, I heard him. ‘My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my—’ everything belonged to him.” – Marlow

“Black figures strolled about listlessly, pouring water on the glow, whence proceeded so much heat and steam. The beaten nigger groaned somewhere.” – Marlow

“The horror! The horror!” – Kurtz

“But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself and, by heavens I tell you, it had gone mad.” – Marlow

“It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom.” – Marlow

“The mind of man is capable of anything.” – Marlow

“No man has ever risen to the heights but because he could see better than other men the worth of those dreams.” – Marlow

“We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet.” – Marlow

“He who praises me for something which I can do, will do yourself no harm, but he who praises me for something which I cannot do, harms himself.” – Marlow

“It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind—as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness.” – Marlow