“The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.”

Source: A Bend in the River

Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it." by V.S. Naipaul?
V.S. Naipaul photo
V.S. Naipaul 34
Trinidadian-British writer of Indo-Nepalese ancestry 1932–2018

Related quotes

Eric Hoffer photo

“Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Section 44
Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

“There's nothing more dangerous than someone who wants to make the world a better place.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Existencilism (2002)

Kanō Jigorō photo

“There are people who are excitable by nature and allow themselves to become angry for the most trivial of reasons.”

Kanō Jigorō (1860–1938) Japanese educator and judoka

Source: Kodokan Judo (1882), p. 23
Context: There are people who are excitable by nature and allow themselves to become angry for the most trivial of reasons. Judo can help such people learn to control themselves. Through training, they quickly realize that anger is a waste of energy, that it has only negative effects on the self and others.

Doris Lessing photo
Otto Weininger photo

“Great men take themselves and the world too seriously to become what is called merely intellectual. Men who are merely intellectual are insincere; they are people who have never really been deeply engrossed by things and who do not feel an overpowering desire for production. All that they care about is that their work should glitter and sparkle like a well-cut stone, not that it should illuminate anything. They are more occupied with what will be said of what they think than by the thoughts themselves.”

Große Männer nehmen sich selbst und die Dinge zu ernst, um öfter als gelegentlich »geistreich« zu sein. Menschen, die nichts sind als eben »geistreich«, sind unfromme Menschen; es sind solche, die, von den Dingen nicht wirklich erfüllt, an ihnen nie ein aufrichtiges und tiefes Interesse nehmen, in denen nicht lang und schwer etwas der Geburt entgegenstrebt. Es ist ihnen nur daran gelegen, daß ihr Gedanke glitzere und funkle wie eine prächtig zugeschliffene Raute, nicht, daß er auch etwas beleuchte! Und das kommt daher, weil ihr Sinnen vor allem die Absicht auf das behält, was die anderen zu eben diesen Gedanken wohl »sagen« werden—eine Rücksicht, die durchaus nicht immer »rücksichtsvoll« ist.
Source: Sex and Character (1903), p. 104.

Lucy Lawless photo

“When you decide to become an opera singer, it's a commitment that allows nothing else to interfere. Even your family - and I have a young daughter - has to take second place.”

Lucy Lawless (1968) New Zealand actress

On her decision not to pursue a career in grand opera, in favor of acting roles in television and film — reported in Times wires (April 11, 1998) "Television Q&A", St. Petersburg Times, p. 13D.

Peter Ustinov photo

“A diplomat these days is nothing but a head-waiter who's allowed to sit down occasionally.”

Act I
Romanoff and Juliet (1956)
Context: The only one who's always punctual is Death … whatever the time he always strikes his knell at the first streak of dawn … and believe me, he knows what he's doing. How I hate the dawn! It's the hour of the firing squad. The last glass of brandy. The ultimate cigarette. The final wish. All the hideously calculated hypocrisy of men when they commit a murder in the name of justice. Then it's the time of death on a grander scale, the hour of the great offenses … fix your bayonets boys …gentlemen, synchronize your watches … in ten seconds time the barrage starts … a thousand men are destined to die in order to capture a farmhouse no one has lived in for years... And finally dawn is the herald of the day, our twelve hours of unimportance, when we have to cede to the pressures of the powers, smile at people we have every reason but expediency to detest … A diplomat these days is nothing but a head-waiter who's allowed to sit down occasionally.

Baruch Spinoza photo
Walter Model photo
Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis photo

“There are two kinds of men who never amount to much: those who cannot do what they are told and those who can do nothing else.”

Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis (1850–1933) American publisher

Quoted in "The Best Liberal Quotes Ever: Why the Left is Right" - Page 39 - by William P. Martin - Reference - 2004

Related topics