E. M. Forster Quotes - Page 10

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• Reformers who are obsessed with purity and cannot see that their obsession is impure.

  E. M. Forster

  Obsession, Purity, Obsessed

  7 Copy quote

• In the creative state a man is taken out of himself.

  E. M. Forster

  Inspirational, Taken, Creativity

  E.M. Forster (1951). “Two Cheers for Democracy”

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• Those who prepared for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy.

  E. M. Forster

  Life, Joy, Preparation

  'Howards End' (1910) ch. 7

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• In time, Mr Hall, one gets to recognize that sneer, that hardness, for fornication extends far beyond the actual deed. Were it a deed only, I for one would not hold it anathema. But when the nations went a whoring they invariably ended by denying God, I think, and until all sexual irregularities and not some of them are penal the Church will never reconquer England.

  E. M. Forster

  Atheist, Thinking, Church

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• I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.

  E. M. Forster

  Romantic, Love Is, Poet

  E.M. Forster (2012). “A Room with a View”, p.166, Courier Corporation

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• In the light of her son's comment she reconsidered the scene at the mosque, to see whose impression was correct. Yes it could be worked into quite an unpleasant scene. The doctor had begun by bullying her, had said Mrs Callendar was nice, and then - finding the ground safe - had changed; he had alternately whined over his grievances and patronized her, had run a dozen ways in a single sentence, had been unreliable, inquisitive, vain. Yes, it was all true, but how false as a summary of the man; the essential life of him had been slain.

  E. M. Forster

  Running, Bullying, Nice

  "A Passage to India".

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• The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal. Both assumptions are false: both of them must be accepted as true if we are to go on eating and working and loving, and are to keep open a few breathing holes for the human spirit.

  E. M. Forster

  Breathing, People, Goes On

  E.M. Forster (1951). “Two Cheers for Democracy”

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• I really don't know what happens next -- one so seldom does.

  E. M. Forster

  Doe, Next, Happens

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• Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.

  E. M. Forster

  Life, Relationship, Important

  'Howards End' (1910) ch. 19

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• Happiness in the ordinary sense is not what one needs in life, though one is right to aim at it. The true satisfaction is to come through, and see those whom one lives come through.

  E. M. Forster

  Life, Ordinary, Needs

  Selected Letters (1983-1985): Letter 216, to Florence Barger, February 11, 1922.

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• If only the sense of actuality can be lulled-and it sleeps for ever in most historians-there is no passion that cannot be gratified in the past.

  E. M. Forster

  Passion, Sleep, Past

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• As for 'story' I never yet did enjoy a novel or play in which someone didn't tell me afterward that there was something wrong with the story, so that's going to be no drawback as far as I'm concerned. "Good Lord, why am I so bored" "I know; it must be the plot developing harmoniously." So I often reply to myself, and there rises before me my special nightmare that of the writer as craftsman, natty and deft.

  E. M. Forster

  Play, Bored, Special

  Selected Letters (1983-1985): Letter 104, to Forrest Reid, June 19, 1912.

  4 Copy quote

• But I have seen my obstacles: trivialities, learning and poetry. This last needs explaining: the old artist's readiness to dissolve characters into a haze. Characters cannot come alive and fight and guide the world unless the novelist wants them to remain characters.

  E. M. Forster

  Character, Fighting, Artist

  E. M. Forster (1987). “Commonplace Book”, p.151, Stanford University Press

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• It so happened that Lucy, who found daily life rather chaotic, entered a more solid world when she opened the piano. She was then no longer either deferential or patronizing; no longer either a rebel or a slave.

  E. M. Forster

  Piano, Rebel, World

  E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.373, Delphi Classics

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• The so called white races are really pinko-grey.

  E. M. Forster

  White, Race, Grey

  A Passage to India ch. 7 (1924)

  4 Copy quote

• Italy is such a delightful place to live in if you happen to be a man. There one may enjoy that exquisite luxury of Socialism--that true Socialism which is based not on equality of income or character, but on the equality of manners. In the democracy of the caffè or the street the great question of our life has been solved, and the brotherhood of man is a reality. But it is accomplished at the expense of the sisterhood of women.

  E. M. Forster

  Character, Reality, Sisterhood

  E. M. Forster (2016). “Where Angels Fear to Tread: England Literature”, p.31, 谷月社

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• Ah, but you see, I didn't want to be fair.

  E. M. Forster

  Book, Want, Language

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• Growing old is an emotion which comes over us at almost any age; I had it myself between the ages of 25 and 30.

  E. M. Forster

  Age, Growing, Emotion

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• I'm a holy man minus the holiness. Hand that on to your three spies, and tell them to put it in their pipes.

  E. M. Forster

  Men, Hands, Spy

  E. M. Forster (2010). “A Passage to India”, p.121, RosettaBooks

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• Solidity, caution, integrity, efficiency. Lack of imagination, hypocrisy. These qualities characterize the middle classes in everycountry, but in England they are national characteristics.

  E. M. Forster

  Integrity, Character, Class

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• I distrust Great Men... I believe in aristocracy, though... Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet... They are sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.

  E. M. Forster

  Believe, Men, Class

  "What I Believe". Essay by E. M. Forster, 1938.

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• England still waits for the supreme moment of her literature--for the great poet who shall voice her, or, better still, for the thousand little poets whose voices shall pass into our common talk.

  E. M. Forster

  Voice, Poetry, Waiting

  E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.733, Delphi Classics

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• Not only in sex, but in all things men have moved blindly, have evolved out of slime to dissolve into it when this accident of consequences is over.

  E. M. Forster

  Life, Sex, Men

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• English literature is a flying fish.

  E. M. Forster

  Fishing, Flying, Literature

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• We may divide characters into flat and round.

  E. M. Forster

  Character, Literature, May

  E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.103, RosettaBooks

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