Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.
E. M. FORSTERIf I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.
More E. M. Forster Quotes
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One of the evils of money is that it tempts us to look at it rather than at the things that it buys.
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There is an aristocracy of the sensitive. They represent the true human tradition of permanent victory over cruelty and chaos.
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My conviction gains infinitely the moment another soul will believe in it.
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Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.
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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.
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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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Give, do not lend; after death who will thank you?
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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.
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So I shan’t ever marry, for there aren’t such men. And Heaven help any one whom I do marry, for I shall certainly run away from him before you can say ‘Jack Robinson.
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Outside the arch, always there seemed another arch. And beyond the remotest echo, a silence.
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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.
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It is easy to sympathize at a distance,’ said an old gentleman with a beard. ‘I value more the kind word that is spoken close to my ear.
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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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Only a writer who has the sense of evil can make goodness readable.
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I think you’re beautiful, the only beautiful person I’ve ever seen. I love your voice and everything to do with you, down to your clothes or the room you are sitting in. I adore you.
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When you come back you will not be you. And I may not be I.
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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.
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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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One grows accustomed to being praised, or being blamed, or being advised, but it is unusual to be understood.
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Money pads the edges of things.
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Love is a great force in private life; it is indeed the greatest of all things; but love in public affairs does not work.
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The emotions may be endless. The more we express them, the more we may have to express.
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Science is better than sympathy, if only it is science.
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Have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time – beautiful?
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The sort of poetry I seek only resides in objects Man can’t touch – like England ‘s grass network of lanes 100 years ago, but today he can destroy them and only Lord Farrer keeps him from doing it.
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There’s never any great risk as long as you have money.
E. M. FORSTER