By heavens! there is something after all in the world allowing one man to steal a horse while another must not look at a halter. Steal a horse straight out. Very well. He has done it. Perhaps he can ride. But there is a way of looking at a halter that would provoke the most charitable of saints into a kick. Joseph Conrad
About This Quote

Lord Rochester was an 18th century British poet and playwright, famous for his many love poems. It seems that he was quite defiant about people stealing horses. He put the whole stealing horse thing in perspective by saying that the thief only got the horse because he was not looking at the halter. Lord Rochester didn’t want to hear anything about the thief so he focused on what the thief did wrong, not what he did right.

It is very important to keep focused when it comes to learning new things. We need to be able to pick out the good information from the bad information. This quote reminds me of these two ideas: 1) The best way to learn something is to watch someone who already knows how to do it.

2) The biggest mistake you can make while learning something new is that you focus on what “they” taught you instead of focusing on what you are learning yourself.

Source: Heart Of Darkness

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More Quotes By Joseph Conrad
  1. Droll thing life is -- that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself -- that comes too late -- a crop of inextinguishable regrets.

  2. Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings.

  3. 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.

  4. Facing it, always facing it, that’s the way to get through. Face it.

  5. Perhaps life is just that... a dream and a fear

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