Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by R.K. Narayan

Quote by R.K. Narayan

“It was Monday morning. Swaminathan was reluctant to open his eyes. he considered Monday specially unpleasant in the calendar. After the delicious freedom of Saturday and Sunday, it was difficult to get into the Monday mood of work and discipline. He shuddered at the very thought of school: the dismal yellow building; the fire-eyed Vedanayagam, his class teacher, and headmaster with his thin long cane...”

Quote by R.K. Narayan

Book:Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts, The Dark Room, The English Teacher: Introduction by Alexander McCall Smith
Create image

Work

Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts, The Dark Room, The English Teacher: Introduction by Alexander McCall Smith

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

R.K. Narayan
R.K. Narayan

R.K. Narayan was an Indian film writer known for his profound insights into Indian society and humanity. His works often depicted the lives of the Indian middle class, showcasing his unique understanding of Indian culture. more

You May Also Like

“When we understand people; when we understand situations; when we understand what matters; when we understand the why’s, the what’s and the how’s; when we understand the trigger of actions, we least inflict pain on ourselves and unto others.”

PainInspirational QuotesLove QuotesWisdom QuotesDaily LifePeace Of MindWhyUnderstanding OthersLiving WellWhatDaily LivingHowUnderstanding LifeUnderstanding Oneself And OthersBrainy QuoteLoving One AnotherUnderstanding LoveReasons For ActionLiving In HarmonyHating Others
Author:Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
Create image

“When I was a schoolboy in England, the old bound volumes of Kipling in the library had gilt swastikas embossed on their covers. The symbol's 'hooks' were left-handed, as opposed to the right-handed ones of the Nazi hakenkreuz, but for a boy growing up after 1945 the shock of encountering the emblem at all was a memorable one. I later learned that in the mid-1930s Kipling had caused this 'signature' to be removed from all his future editions. Having initially sympathized with some of the early European fascist movements, he wanted to express his repudiation of Hitlerism (or 'the Hun,' as he would perhaps have preferred to say), and wanted no part in tainting the ancient Indian rune by association. In its origin it is a Hindu and Jainas symbol for light, and well worth rescuing.”

SchoolEuropeEnglandSymbolsHinduismFascismWorld War Ii1930sNazisAdolf Hitler1945Rudyard KiplingSwastikasFascism In Europe
Book:Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays
Create image

“For Oscar, high school was the equivalent of a medieval spectacle, like being put in the stocks and forced to endure the peltings and outrages of a mob of deranged half-wits, an experience from which he supposed he should have emerged a better person, but that’s not really what happened—and if there were any lessons to be gleaned from the ordeal of those years he never quite figured out what they were. He walked into school every day like the fat lonely nerdy kid he was, and all he could think about was the day of his manumission, when he would at last be set free from its unending horror. Hey, Oscar, are there faggots on Mars?—Hey, Kazoo, catch this. The first time he heard the term moronic inferno he know exactly where it was located and who were its inhabitants.”

SchoolNerdGeekSchoolingSchoolsNerdsGeeksNerdiness
Book:The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Create image

“... I succeeded at math, at least by the usual evaluation criteria: grades. Yet while I might have earned top marks in geometry and algebra, I was merely following memorized rules, plugging in numbers and dutifully crunching out answers by rote, with no real grasp of the significance of what I was doing or its usefulness in solving real-world problems. Worse, I knew the depth of my own ignorance, and I lived in fear that my lack of comprehension would be discovered and I would be exposed as an academic fraud -- psychologists call this "imposter syndrome".”

SchoolMathFraudAcademics
Book:The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse
Create image

“The objective of learning is not necessarily to remember. It may even be salutary to forget. It is only when we forget the early pains and struggles of forming letters that we acquire the capacity for writing. The adult does not remember all the history s/he learned but s/he may hope to have acquired a standard of character and conduct, a sense of affairs and a feeling of change and development in culture. Naturally there is nothing against having a well-stocked mind provided it does not prevent the development of other capacities. But it is still more important to allow knowledge to sink into one in such a way that it becomes fruitful for life; this best done when we feel deeply all we learn. For the life of feeling is less conscious, more dream-like, than intellectual activity and leads to the subconscious life of will where the deep creative capacities of humanity have their being. It is from this sphere that knowledge can emerge again as something deeply significant for life. It is not what we remember exactly, but what we transform which is of real value to our lives. In this transformation the process of forgetting, of allowing subjects to sink into the unconscious before "re-membering" them is an important element.”

SchoolEducationLearningMemoryFeelingForgettingWaldorfCamphill
Book:Education for special needs: Principles and practice in Camphill Schools
Create image