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
The world outside existed in a kind of darkness; and we inquired about nothing.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the ignorance toward the outside world and the lack of curiosity about it.
V. S. Naipaul's quote suggests that people often live in a state of unawareness, where they do not seek to understand or inquire about the reality beyond their immediate existence. This 'darkness' symbolizes a broader human condition where ignorance and complacency prevail, inhibiting personal growth and societal progress.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the importance of education and awareness in today's society.
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.
There is no present or future-only the past, happening over and over again-now.
The naked truth is always better than the best-dressed lie.
And I will die, and you will die, and we all will die, and even the stars will fade out one after another in time.
The man of the future who will redeem us not only from the hitherto reigning ideal but also from that which was bound to grow out of it, the great nausea, the will to nothingness, nihilism; this bell stroke of noon and of the great decision that liberates the will again and restores its goal to the earth and his hope to man; this Antichrist and anti-nihilist; this victor over God and nothingness - he must come one day.
Civilization survives on the constant discovery of amity and an equal supply of damnation.
The robust English view used to be that the correct response to offensive words is to ignore them, or to answer them with a rebuke. If you invoke the law at all, it should be to protect the one who gives the offence, and not the one who takes it. Now, it seems, it is all the other way round.
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