If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.
E. M. FORSTERThe historian records, but the novelist creates.
More E. M. Forster Quotes
-
-
Life is sometimes life and sometimes only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish t’other from which . . .
E. M. FORSTER -
My temple stands not upon Mount Moriah but in the Elysian Field where even the immoral are admitted. My motto is ‘Lord, I disbelieve – help thou my unbelief.
E. M. FORSTER -
One of the evils of money is that it tempts us to look at it rather than at the things that it buys.
E. M. FORSTER -
I distrust Great Men. They produce a desert of uniformity around them and often a pool of blood too, and I always feel a little man’s pleasure when they come a cropper.
E. M. FORSTER -
Have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time – beautiful?
E. M. FORSTER -
I believe we shall come to care about people less and less, Helen. The more people one knows, the easier it becomes to replace them. It’s one of the curses of London. I quite expect to end my life caring most for a place.
E. M. FORSTER -
The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.
E. M. FORSTER -
I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I’d like to be.
E. M. FORSTER -
Books have to be read it is the only way of discovering what they contain.
E. M. FORSTER -
We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won’t do harm – yes, choose a place where you won’t do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.
E. M. FORSTER -
You told me once that we shall be judged by our intentions, not by our accomplishments. I thought it a grand remark. But we must intend to accomplish – not sit intending on a chair.
E. M. FORSTER -
The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.
E. M. FORSTER -
Inside its cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend.
E. M. FORSTER -
Sometimes I think too much fuss is made about marriage. Century after century of carnal embracement and we’re still no nearer to understanding one another.
E. M. FORSTER -
The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected.
E. M. FORSTER