How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"This is a disgrace. We've got all kinds among us [...] but, hang it, we must preserve professional decency or we become no better than so many tinkers going about loose. We are trusted. Do you understand? – trusted!'" (6.14)
Though Captain B seems concerned with "professional decency" and public "trust," a loss of reputation and respect doesn't mean a loss in profits or customers. No, what he's really concerned with, deep down, is that he no longer knows what it means to be a sailor. Every cowardly act by a seafarer threatens his identity of a man of dignity, honor, and trust. Tinkers, by the way, refers to people who would travel the countryside mending household utensils like pots, pans, scissors, and knives. By this time in Britain, the word had come to be a bit of an insult.
Quote #5
"'I am going through with that. Only' – and there he spoke a little faster – 'I won't let any man call me names outside this court.'" (6.22)
Jim draws all sorts of weird and wacky boundaries for himself, especially in matters concerning his personal reputation. He's oddly willing to take his punishment and accept the consequences of his actions in formal institutional settings, like the trial. Yet he's also extremely touchy and won't let people insult him in just any old situation. He seems willing to be judged by a faceless system, but not by the men he actually meets.
Quote #6
"It was solemn, and a little ridiculous too, as they always are, those struggles of an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what his moral identity should be, this precious notion of a convention, only one of the rules of the game, nothing more [...]" (7.8)
Solemn? Ridiculous? Sounds about right if you're looking for words to describe Jim's sad story. Marlow, for one, finds Jim's situation tragic, but also pretty absurd. Jim is aspiring to be some sort of moral person that he simply isn't.