Faith, to my mind, is a stiffening process, a sort of mental starch, which ought to be applied as sparingly as possible. I dislike the stuff. I do not believe in it, for its own sake, at all… My lawgivers are Erasmus and Montaigne, not Moses and St Paul.
E. M. FORSTERNonsense and beauty have close connections.
More E. M. Forster Quotes
-
-
The other damned saw what was happening and caught hold of it too. She was indignant and cried, “Let go-it’s my onion,” and as soon as she said, “my onion,” the stalk broke and she fell back into the flames.
E. M. FORSTER -
Only a writer who has the sense of evil can make goodness readable.
E. M. FORSTER -
There are periods in the most thrilling day during which nothing happens, and though we continue to exclaim, “I do enjoy myself”, or , “I am horrified,” we are insincere.
E. M. FORSTER -
You confuse what’s important with what’s impressive.
E. M. FORSTER -
The historian records, but the novelist creates.
E. M. FORSTER -
Life is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.
E. M. FORSTER -
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.
E. M. FORSTER -
We move between two darknesses.
E. M. FORSTER -
Don’t begin with proportion. Only prigs do that. Let proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed.
E. M. FORSTER -
When I think of what life is, and how seldom love is answered by love; it is one of the moments for which the world was made.
E. M. FORSTER -
One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it.
E. M. FORSTER -
I cannot help thinking that there is something to admire in everyone, even if you do not approve of them.
E. M. FORSTER -
One grows accustomed to being praised, or being blamed, or being advised, but it is unusual to be understood.
E. M. FORSTER -
Adventures do occur, but not punctually.
E. M. FORSTER -
Let yourself go. Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them.
E. M. FORSTER