--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: Such a marvelous opportunity wasted. I…" description: "\"“Such a marvelous opportunity wasted. I mean for us, by us. Indians feel it too, don’t they? I mean, in spite of the proud chests and all the excitemen..." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f65/paul-scott-8558_love-letter_such-a-marvelous-opportunity-wasted-i-me_632099.jpg" --- # Such a marvelous opportunity wasted. I mean for us, by us… ![“Such a marvelous opportunity wasted. I mean for us, by us. Indians feel it too, don’t they? I mean, in spite of the proud chests and all the excitement of sitting down as free men at their own desks to work out a constitution. Won’t that constitution be a sort of love letter to the English—the…” quote by Paul Scott](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f65/paul-scott-8558_love-letter_such-a-marvelous-opportunity-wasted-i-me_632099.jpg) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f65/paul-scott-8558_love-letter_such-a-marvelous-opportunity-wasted-i-me_632099.jpg) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f65/paul-scott-8558_love-letter_such-a-marvelous-opportunity-wasted-i-me_632099.jpg) > ““Such a marvelous opportunity wasted. I mean for us, by us. Indians feel it too, don’t they? I mean, in spite of the proud chests and all the excitement of sitting down as free men at their own desks to work out a constitution. Won’t that constitution be a sort of love letter to the English—the kind an abandoned lover writes when the affair has ended in what passes at the time as civilized and dignified mutual recognition of incompatability? In a world grown suddenly dull because the beloved, thank God, has gone, offering his killing and unpredictable and selfish affections elsewhere, you attempt to recapture, don’t you, the moments of significant pleasure—which may not have been mutual at all, but anyway existed. But this recapture is always impossible. You settle for the second-rate, you settle for the lesson you appear to have learned and forget the lesson you hoped to learn and might have learned, and so learn nothing at all, because the second-rate is the world’s common factor, and any damned fool people can teach it, any damned fool people can inherit it.”” [Paul Scott](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/paul-scott/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. The speaker laments missed chances for genuine self‑determination, comparing a new constitution to a love letter to a former lover, and warns that settling for mediocrity leads to learning nothing. **In simple terms:** Wasted chances and settling for mediocrity. Key Takeaway Avoid accepting half‑measures. Themes politics colonialism disillusionment Mood melancholic reflective critical Type political philosophical literary When to use this quote - nation‑building - post‑colonial governance - personal ambition - cultural reconciliation Key Concepts identity power dynamics historical regret Questions to Reflect On - What would a truly independent constitution look like? - How can societies resist settling for second‑rate outcomes? 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I mean for us, by us. Indians feel it too, don’t they? I mean, in spite of the proud chests and all the excitement of sitting down as free men at their own desks to work out a constitution. Won’t that constitution be a sort of love letter to the English—the kind an abandoned lover writes when the affair has ended in what passes at the time as civilized and dignified mutual recognition of incompatability? In a world grown suddenly dull because the beloved, thank God, has gone, offering his killing and unpredictable and selfish affections elsewhere, you attempt to recapture, don’t you, the moments of significant pleasure—which may not have been mutual at all, but anyway existed. But this recapture is always impossible. You settle for the second-rate, you settle for the lesson you appear to have learned and forget the lesson you hoped to learn and might have learned, and so learn nothing at all, because the second-rate is the world’s common factor, and any damned fool people can teach it, any damned fool people can inherit it.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Paul Scott" }, "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/paul-scott/such-a-marvelous-opportunity-wasted-i-mean-for-us-by-us-indians-feel/", "about": { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Love letter" }, "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/paul-scott/such-a-marvelous-opportunity-wasted-i-mean-for-us-by-us-indians-feel/#quotation", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f65/paul-scott-8558_love-letter_such-a-marvelous-opportunity-wasted-i-me_632099.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f65/paul-scott-8558_love-letter_such-a-marvelous-opportunity-wasted-i-me_632099.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f65/paul-scott-8558_love-letter_such-a-marvelous-opportunity-wasted-i-me_632099.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Such a marvelous opportunity wasted. 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