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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.

E. M. Forster

What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?
E. M. FORSTER

Daily Enter Good Live Star Sunrise Tree Wind
There’s never any great risk as long as you have money.
E. M. FORSTER

Great Long Money never Risk
… there are shadows because there are hills.
E. M. FORSTER

Hill Shadow
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.
E. M. FORSTER

Life Miniature Play Pretend School Time Trick Unhappiest World Worst
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

Buy Evil Look Money One Rather Tempt Thing
Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate.
E. M. FORSTER

Appropriate Consider Give Life Movement never Us Want
The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world.
E. M. FORSTER

Kingdom Music World
Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don’t believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art’s sake.
E. M. FORSTER

Art Believe Internal Material Object Only Opinion Order Posses Universe Work
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.
E. M. FORSTER

Beard Distance Ear Gentlemen Kind More Old Say Spoken Sympathize Value
It is so difficult – at least, I find it difficult – to understand people who speak the truth.
E. M. FORSTER

Choose Difficult Insult Ladylike Least Myself Right
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

Better Come Fail Last Proportion Resource Thing
It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright bare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean though they are not; with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins and blue amorini sport in a forest of yellow violins and bassoons.
E. M. FORSTER

Barem Toom Bright Clean Country Floor Paint People Person Pleasant Tile Wake
It isn’t possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.
E. M. FORSTER

Art Ignore Love Muddle never Oull Out Possible Transmute
One grows accustomed to being praised, or being blamed, or being advised, but it is unusual to be understood.
E. M. FORSTER

Accustomed Advice Being Blame Grow One Praise Understand Unusual
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.
E. M. FORSTER

Aziz Being Express Heart Man Many Mine Slowly Way Wink
Life is sometimes life and sometimes only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish t’other from which . . .
E. M. FORSTER

Distinguish Drama Learn Life Something
It was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches opposite, and, close below, Arno, gurgling against the embankment of the road.
E. M. FORSTER

Beautiful Embankment Fastening Hill Opposite Pinch Pleasant Road Tree Unfamiliar Wide
Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.
E. M. FORSTER

Feed Long Nothing Run Shape Some Spoon Teach
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. FORSTER

Apply Faith Mental Mind Ought Possible Process Sort Starch Stiffening Straight
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.
E. M. FORSTER

Beyond Death Differ Live Nothing Nothingness Own People Shall
One has two duties – to be worried and not to be worried.
E. M. FORSTER

City One Two Worried Worry
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.
E. M. FORSTER

Been Beggar Dep Done Given Good Hell Lofe Onion Went Wick
We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand.
E. M. FORSTER

Cast Shadow Something Stand
To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art; men can only make us feel small in the wrong way.
E. M. FORSTER

Feel Function Make Mean Right Small Way Wrong
Don’t be mysterious; there isn’t the time.
E. M. FORSTER

Mysterious The Time
The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal.
E. M. FORSTER

Behave Eternal Immortal Most People Respect Society
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.
E. M. FORSTER

Equipped Impressive Inconsistency Pity Proud Same

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More E. M. Forster Quotes