What had been (at the beginning) no bigger than a full stop had expanded into a comma, a word, a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter; now it was bursting into more complex developments, becoming, one might say, a book - perhaps an encylopaedia - even a whole language.
Interpretation
The quote illustrates the idea of growth and evolution of thoughts and ideas over time.
In this quote, Salman Rushdie reflects on the process of how small ideas can develop into vast and complex constructs. Starting from something as simple as a full stop, the narrative progresses through various stages of expansion, ultimately suggesting that thoughts can evolve into comprehensive and intricate systems of knowledge, akin to languages or encyclopedias, which denotes the power of language and expression in human experience.
In practice
In a speech about innovation, one might say, 'As Salman Rushdie noted, what starts as a small idea can evolve into something monumental.'
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
The federal government is acknowledged by all to be one of enumerated powers. The principle, that it can exercise only the powers granted to it . . . is now universally admitted.
I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
It usually takes a hundred years to make a law, and then, after it has done its work; it usually takes a hundred years to get rid of it.
Consciousness succumbs all too easily to unconscious influences, and these are often truer and wiser than our conscious thinking.
The American grips himself, at the very sources of his consciousness, in a grip of care: and then, to so much of the rest of life, is indifferent. Whereas, the European hasn't got so much care in him, so he cares much more for life and living.
In journalism, we recognize a kind of hierarchy of fame among the famous. We measure it in two ways: by the length of an obituary and by how far in advance it is prepared. Presidents, former presidents, and certain heads of state are at the top of the chain.
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