The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.
E. M. FORSTERMost 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.
More E. M. Forster Quotes
-
-
Nonsense and beauty have close connections.
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 -
But it struck him that people are not really dead until they are felt to be dead. As long as there is some misunderstanding about them, they possess a sort of immortality.
E. M. FORSTER -
I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I’d like to be.
E. M. FORSTER -
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 -
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.
E. M. FORSTER -
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 -
You confuse what’s important with what’s impressive.
E. M. FORSTER -
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.
E. M. FORSTER -
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 -
We move between two darknesses.
E. M. FORSTER -
I won’t be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult.
E. M. FORSTER -
If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.
E. M. FORSTER -
The historian records, but the novelist creates.
E. M. FORSTER -
The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected.
E. M. FORSTER