The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.
E. M. FORSTERInside 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.
More E. M. Forster Quotes
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Books have to be read it is the only way of discovering what they contain.
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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.
E. M. FORSTER -
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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What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.
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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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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.
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Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him.
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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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It’s not what people do to you, but what they mean, that hurts.
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What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?
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My temple stands not upon Mount Moriah but in the Elysian Field where even the immoral are admitted. My motto is ‘Lord, I disbelieve – help thou my unbelief.
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Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate.
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When you come back you will not be you. And I may not be I.
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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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The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.
E. M. FORSTER