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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

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.
E. M. FORSTER

Cast Follow Good Move Place Save Shadow Something Stand Thing
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
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
Life is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.
E. M. FORSTER

Go Instrument Learn Life Long Must Performance Public Violin
How can I know what I think till I see what I say?
E. M. FORSTER

Know Say See Think What
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
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
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

Actual Conduct Inner Life Moment Motive Pay Scrutiny Self Suddenly Use Year
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
Unless we remember we cannot understand.
E. M. FORSTER

Understand Unless Remember
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
We move between two darknesses.
E. M. FORSTER

Between Darknesses Move Two
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
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

Again Happen Nearly Nothing Period Pleasure Pretend Register Thrill
One has two duties – to be worried and not to be worried.
E. M. FORSTER

City One Two Worried Worry
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

There are moments when the inner life actually ‘pays,’ when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use.

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There are moments when the inner life actually ‘pays,’ when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use.

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Popular Authors

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