It’s not what people do to you, but what they mean, that hurts.
E. M. FORSTERFor it is a serious thing to have been watched. We all radiate something curiously intimate when we believe ourselves to be alone.
More E. M. Forster Quotes
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Books have to be read it is the only way of discovering what they contain.
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 -
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 -
Love is a great force in private life; it is indeed the greatest of all things; but love in public affairs does not work.
E. M. FORSTER -
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.
E. M. FORSTER -
I believe in teaching people to be individuals, and to understand other individuals.
E. M. FORSTER -
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.
E. M. FORSTER -
When you come back you will not be you. And I may not be I.
E. M. FORSTER -
We move between two darknesses.
E. M. FORSTER -
I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars.
E. M. FORSTER -
There are moments when the inner life actually ‘pays,’ when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use.
E. M. FORSTER -
Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him.
E. M. FORSTER -
Adventures do occur, but not punctually.
E. M. FORSTER -
Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.
E. M. FORSTER -
Unless we remember we cannot understand.
E. M. FORSTER






