For it is a serious thing to have been watched. We all radiate something curiously intimate when we believe ourselves to be alone.
E. M. FORSTERUnless we remember we cannot understand.
More E. M. Forster Quotes
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Think before you speak is criticism’s motto; speak before you think, creation’s.
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… there are shadows because there are hills.
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You confuse what’s important with what’s impressive.
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One has two duties – to be worried and not to be worried.
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The armour of falsehood is subtly wrought out of darkness, and hides a man not only from others, but from his own soul.
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Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.
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One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested.
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She stopped and leant her elbows against the parapet of the embankment. He did likewise. There is at times a magic in identity of position; it is one of the things that have suggested to us eternal comradeship.
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It is so difficult – at least, I find it difficult – to understand people who speak the truth.
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The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.
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The final test for a novel will be our affection for it, as it is the test of our friends, and of anything else which we cannot define.
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How can I know what I think till I see what I say?
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The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world.
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Do not be proud of your inconsistency. It is a pity, it is a pity that we should be equipped like this. It is a pity that Man cannot be at the same time impressive and truthful.
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Adventures do occur, but not punctually.
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Science is better than sympathy, if only it is science.
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It’s not what people do to you, but what they mean, that hurts.
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I cannot help thinking that there is something to admire in everyone, even if you do not approve of them.
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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.
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One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.
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Aziz winked at him slowly and said: “…There are many ways of being a man; mine is to express what is deepest in my heart.
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Money pads the edges of things.
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Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talks that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence.
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Nonsense and beauty have close connections.
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School was the unhappiest time of my life and the worst trick it ever played on me was to pretend that it was the world in miniature. For it hindered me from discovering how lovely and delightful and kind the world can be, and how much of it is intelligible.
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Life is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.
E. M. FORSTER