The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad Vol. 2

(16) The machine is thinner than air and as evanescent as a flash of lightning. The attitude of cold unconcern is the only reasonable one. Of course reason is hateful - but why? Because it demonstrates to those who have the courage that we, living, are out of life - utterly out of it.

(16) The mysteries of a universe made of drops of fire and clods of mud do not concern us in the least. The fate of a humanity condemned ultimately to perish from cold is not worth troubling about. If you take it to heart it becomes an unendurable tragedy. If you believe in improvement you must weep, for the attained perfection must end in cold, darkness and silence. [당시에 유행하던 기계론적 세계관. entropy. Time-Machine을 보면 노쇠한 태양이 나옴. 아나톨 프랑스의 에세이와 유사함. 주를 볼 것] In a dispassionate view the ardour for reform, improvement for virtue, for knowledge, and even for beauty is a vain sticking up for appearances as though one were anxious about the cut of one's clothes in a community of blind men.

(17) Life knows us not and we do not know life - we don't know even our own thoughts. Half the words we use have no meaning whatever and of the other half each man understands each word after the fashion of his own folly and conceit. Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like mists on the shore, thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of to-morrow - only the string of my platitudes seems to have no end.' Yet he didn't string platitudes he skewered them.

(Language is evasive, its referents ephemeral, its claims to transcendental power false. Such meanings as it has are arbitrary, subject to individual prejudice and whim.  Selected Letters. Davies xxxii)

(159)  'Fraternity means nothing unless the Cain-Abel business.' (Cunningham)

(160) Man is a vicious animal. His viciousness must be organised. Crime is a necessary condition of organised existence. Society is fundamentally criminal -- or it would not exist. Selfishness preserves everything -- absolutely everything -- everything we hate and everything we love. And everything holds together. That is why I respect the extreme anarchists. [원문 프랑스 어] 

(211) 991026 E. L. Sanderson

보어 전쟁에 대한 의견 표명

(229) 991225 Aniela Zagorska

That they[The Boers] are struggling in good faith for their independence cannot be doubted; but it is also a fact that they have no idea of liberty, which can only be found under the English flag all over the world. C'est un peuple essentiellement despotique(본질적으로 독재적인 사람들이다), like by the way all the Dutch.  

245) E. Garnett (000120)

- [Thaddeus Bobrowski] one of her brothers Thaddeus to whom I stand more in the relation of a son than of a nephew was a man of powerful intelligence and great force of character and possessed an enormous influence in teh Three Provinces (Ukraine, Volhynia and Podolia). A most distinguished man.

246) [아버지 Apollonius] A man of great sensibilities; of exalted and dreamy temperament; with a terrible gift of irony and of gloomy disposition; withal of strong religious feeling degenerating after the loss of his wife into mysticism touched with despair. His aspect was distinguished; his conversation very fascinating; his face in repose sombre, lighted all over when he smiled.

(246) all made sacrifices of fortune, liberty and life for the cause in which they believed; and very few had any illusions as to its success. [가닛. 1900. 가족과 친척들이 독립 운동을 하다가 죽어간 것에 대한 이야기.]

(468) It's strange how I always, from the age of fourteen, disliked ths Christian religion, its doctrines, ceremonies and festivals. Presentiment that some day it will work my undoing, I suppose. (Garnett)