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The truth seems to be that it is impossible to lay the ghost of a fact.
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“The truth seems to be that it is impossible to lay the ghost of a fact.”

Joseph Conrad

Source
Lord Jim
Date
1900
Meaning

Meaning of “The truth seems to be that it is…”

Marlow reflects that an established event can continue to shape reputation and self-understanding even after a person tries to escape its consequences.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Lord Jim, Project Gutenberg #5658. Marlow’s narration concerns Jim’s effort to live beyond the Patna scandal; the sentence is literary reflection on memory, fact and moral consequence.

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DeepLifeLife AdviceLife LessonsMoving OnRegretShortThought-Provoking Quotes That Invite ReflectionTruthLife Goes On
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“In a world where all is fleeting, change alone endures.”

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Stability is temporary, so practical judgment requires expecting change rather than treating present arrangements as permanent.

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“There is no hope, if we look back at the past: there may be hope, if we look on to the future.”

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Meaning & context

Mr Pendril urges Miss Garth to focus on what can still change rather than treating past disaster as proof that every future possibility is closed.

Source details

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“I saw that that was life itself and that the meaning given to this life was truth, and I accepted it.”

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Meaning & context

The search for meaning ends here in acceptance of a lived framework Tolstoy regards as true, emphasizing that meaning is not merely an abstract proof but something embodied in life.

Source details

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The unexamined life is not worth living.
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“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

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Socrates links a worthwhile human life with reflection on beliefs, conduct, and reasons rather than unexamined routine.

Source details

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I am not young enough to know everything.
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“I am not young enough to know everything.”

J. M. Barrie · The Admirable Crichton · 1902
Meaning & context

Barrie reverses the cliché that age brings complete wisdom, making youthful certainty—not age—the comic claim to omniscience.

Source details

The Admirable Crichton, Act I, Project Gutenberg #3490. Ernest Woolley repeatedly delivers “I am not young enough to know everything” as a self-consciously clever epigram while Agatha, Treherne and the others struggle to understand it; Crichton later says he has no idea what Ernest meant. It remains fictional comic dialogue rather than J. M. Barrie autobiography or a factual claim about age and knowledge.

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We do not indeed so often disappoint others as ourselves.
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“We do not indeed so often disappoint others as ourselves.”

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Meaning & context

Private expectations can exceed what anyone else demands of us, so a life may feel disappointing chiefly by comparison with unfulfilled plans known only to oneself.

Source details

The Idler, No. 88; the surrounding paragraph concerns private hopes, proposed tasks and the gap between imagined achievement and lived action.