The difference between a simpleton and an intelligent man, according to the man who is convinced that he is of the latter category, is that the former wholeheartedly accepts all things that he sees and hears while the latter never admits anything except after a most searching scrutiny. He imagines his intelligence to be a sieve of closely woven mesh through which nothing but the finest can pass.
—R. K. Narayan
If you threw a stone into a gutter, it would only spurt filth in your face.
—R. K. Narayan
Do you realize how few ever really understand how fortunate they are in their circumstances?
—R. K. Narayan
It seems to me that we generally do not have a correct measure of our own wisdom.
—R. K. Narayan
When one is seized with a passion to understand one’s self, one has to leave behind all normal life and habitual modes of thought.
—R. K. Narayan
We always question the bonafides of the man who tells us unpleasant facts.
—R. K. Narayan
Knowledge, like food, must be taken within limits. You must know only as much as you need, and not more.
—R. K. Narayan
The unbeaten brat will remain unlearned.
—R. K. Narayan
No one ever accepts criticism so cheerfully. Neither the man who utters it nor the man who invites it really means it.
—R. K. Narayan
Society presses upon us all the time. The progress of the last half century is the progress of the frog out of his well.
—R. K. Narayan
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- V. S. Naipaul Trinidadian-British Writer
- Agatha Christie British Novelist
- John Irving American Novelist
- Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) Danish Novelist, Short-story Writer
- John Cheever American Novelist
- Louis L’Amour American Novelist
- Stephen King American Novelist
- Richard Wright American Novelist, Short-Story Writer
- Edgar Allan Poe American Poet
- Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy Russian Novelist
Leave a Reply