Joseph Conrad quote about words from Under Western Eyes - Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.
pick facebookpinterest picture source

Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.
 Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes (1911). copy citation

edit
Author Joseph Conrad
Source Under Western Eyes
Topic words reality
Date 1911
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2480/2480-h/2480-h.htm

Context

“To begin with I wish to disclaim the possession of those high gifts of imagination and expression which would have enabled my pen to create for the reader the personality of the man who called himself, after the Russian custom, Cyril son of Isidor—Kirylo Sidorovitch—Razumov.
If I have ever had these gifts in any sort of living form they have been smothered out of existence a long time ago under a wilderness of words. Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality. I have been for many years a teacher of languages. It is an occupation which at length becomes fatal to whatever share of imagination, observation, and insight an ordinary person may be heir to. To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.” source

Meaning and analysis

write a note
report