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All you decent, well-meaning gentlemen, let me ask you, have you any idea what sort of place the world is becoming all around you? The days when you could act out of your noble instincts are over. Except of course, you here in Europe don't yet seem to know it.

All you decent, well-meaning gentlemen, let me ask you, have you any idea what sort of place the world is becoming all around you? The days when you could act out of your noble instincts are over. Except of course, you here in Europe don't yet seem to know it.

Approximate author period: c. 1954 AD · modern

Meaning not yet available

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Kazuo Ishiguro
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1954 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from documented birth year 1954; activity date not established; Wikidata Q272855, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q272855 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 84275; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.