black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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.

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

Choose Insult Lady Myself Protect Right Shield
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

Accept Alike Breed Culture Intelect Kingdom Music Reject
Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.
E. M. FORSTER

Cloth Enterprise Mistrust Require
There is an aristocracy of the sensitive. They represent the true human tradition of permanent victory over cruelty and chaos.
E. M. FORSTER

Aristocracy Chaos Cruelty Human Permanent Represent Sensitive Tradition True Ver Victory
Unless we remember we cannot understand.
E. M. FORSTER

Understand Unless Remember
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.
E. M. FORSTER

Depth Let Meaning Pull Sunlight Thought Understand Yourself
The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.
E. M. FORSTER

Belief Characteristics Curiosity Food Good Human Humanism Mind Race Taste
When you come back you will not be you. And I may not be I.
E. M. FORSTER

Back Come May You
There’s never any great risk as long as you have money.
E. M. FORSTER

Great Long Money never Risk
Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him.
E. M. FORSTER

Death Destroy Idea Man Save
The sort of poetry I seek only resides in objects Man can’t touch – like England ‘s grass network of lanes 100 years ago, but today he can destroy them and only Lord Farrer keeps him from doing it.
E. M. FORSTER

Ago Country Destroy Grass Hundred Lane Man Network Object Poetry Reason Seek Sort Them Today Touch Year
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
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.
E. M. FORSTER

Beautiful Cloth Everything Person Room Seen Think Voice
A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.
E. M. FORSTER

Else Hang Information Itself Nothing Poem Point Something Together True
So I shan’t ever marry, for there aren’t such men. And Heaven help any one whom I do marry, for I shall certainly run away from him before you can say ‘Jack Robinson.
E. M. FORSTER

Away Certainty Country Men People Person Run Shall
You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you.
E. M. FORSTER

Ignore Middle never Out Pull Transmute
How can I know what I think till I see what I say?
E. M. FORSTER

Know Say See Think What
Money pads the edges of things.
E. M. FORSTER

Edge Money Pad Thing
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.
E. M. FORSTER

Become Believe Come Country Easier Less More People Person replace Shall
I can only do what’s easy. I can only entice and be enticed. I can’t, and won’t, attempt difficult relations. If I marry it will either be a man who’s strong enough to boss me or whom I’m strong enough to boss.
E. M. FORSTER

Attempt Can Difficult Easy Entice Only Relation
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

Anything Define Effective Else Final Friend Novel Test Tet
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
Creative writers are always greater than the causes that they represent.
E. M. FORSTER

Always Cause Creative Greater Represent Writer
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
Books have to be read it is the only way of discovering what they contain.
E. M. FORSTER

Book Contain Discover Only Read Way
Science is better than sympathy, if only it is science.
E. M. FORSTER

Better Only Science Sympathy
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

Accomplishment Intention Judge Once Shall Told

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More E. M. Forster Quotes