When I learnt to write I became my own master, I became very strong, and that strength is with me to this very day.
V. S. NaipaulRead
If ever you wish to meet intellectual frauds in quantity, go to Paris.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that Paris is home to many who pretend to be intellectuals but lack genuine depth or understanding.
V. S. Naipaul's quote reflects his observation of Paris as a city where superficiality may be prevalent among those who consider themselves intellectuals. This statement critiques the existence of individuals who, despite their appearances and claims, lack true knowledge or substance, highlighting the distinction between authentic intellect and mere facades often found in cultural hotspots.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of intellectualism, one might quote Naipaul to emphasize the presence of pretentiousness in cultural hubs.
When I learnt to write I became my own master, I became very strong, and that strength is with me to this very day.
It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling.
If you decide to move to another country and to live within its laws you don't express your disregard for the essence of the culture. It's a form of aggression.
One must always try to see the truth of a situation - it makes things universal.
His ignorance seemed to widen with everything he read.
I think when you see so many Hindu temples of the 10th century or earlier disfigured, defaced, you realise that something terrible happened. I feel the civilisation of that closed world was mortally wounded by those invasions the old world is destroyed. That has to be understood. Ancient Hindu India was destroyed.
This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.
A dance is the devil's procession, and he that entereth into a dance, entereth into his possession.
No generalization is wholly trueβnot even this one.
Life isn't some vertical or horizontal line -- you have your own interior world, and it's not neat.
Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that -- well, lucky you.
The real differences around the world today are not between Jews and Arabs; Protestants and Catholics; Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. The real differences are between those who embrace peace and those who would destroy it. Between those who look to the future and those who cling to the past. Between those who open their arms and those who are determined to clench their fists.
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