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. FORSTERIt is so difficult – at least, I find it difficult – to understand people who speak the truth.
More E. M. Forster Quotes
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I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars.
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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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We move between two darknesses.
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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.
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Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate.
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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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The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.
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It isn’t possible to love and to part.
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The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.
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She had been so wicked that in all her life she had done only one good deed-given an onion to a beggar. So she went to hell. As she lay in torment she saw the onion, lowered down from heaven by an angel. She caught hold of it. He began to pull her up.
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Railway termini are our gates to the glorious and the unknown
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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.
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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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But Humanity, in its desire for comfort, had over-reached itself. It had exploited the riches of nature too far. Quietly and complacently, it was sinking into decadence, and progress had come to mean the progress of the Machine.
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Human relations are impossible. When they are real they are uncomfortable, and when they are comfortable they are unreal. It was for the journey into solitude that the human soul was created.
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Science is better than sympathy, if only it is science.
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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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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.
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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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Nonsense and beauty have close connections.
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People have their own deaths as well as their own lives, and even if there is nothing beyond death, we shall differ in our nothingness.
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We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand.
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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.
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When you come back you will not be you. And I may not be I.
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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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You confuse what’s important with what’s impressive.
E. M. FORSTER