E. M. Forster Quotes - Page 11

Quotes about:

In Europe life retreats out of the cold, and exquisite fireside myths have resulted—Balder, Persephone—but [in India] the retreat is from the source of life, the treacherous sun, and no poetry adorns it because disillusionment cannot be beautiful. Men yearn for poetry though they may not confess it; they desire that joy shall be graceful and sorrow august and infinity have a form, and India fails to accommodate them.

E. M. Forster

Beautiful, Men, August

5 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

13 Copy quote
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
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

5 Copy quote
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.

4 Copy quote
I am a Jane Austenite, and therefore slightly imbecile about Jane Austen. My fatuous expression, and airs of personal immunity-how ill they sit on the face, say,of a Stevensonian! But Jane Austen is so different. She is my favourite author! I read and reread, the mouth open and the mind closed. Shut up in measureless content, I greet her by the name of most kind hostess, while criticism slumbers.

E. M. Forster

Air, Expression, Names

7 Copy quote
How can the mind take hold of such a country? Generations of invaders have tried, but they remain in exile. The important towns they build are only retreats, their quarrels the malaise of men who cannot find their way home. India knows of their trouble. She knows of the whole world's trouble, to its uttermost depth. She calls "Come" through her hundred mouths, through objects ridiculous and august. But come to what? She has never defined. She is not a promise, only an appeal.

E. M. Forster

Country, Home, Men

E. M. Forster (2010). “A Passage to India”, p.136, RosettaBooks

8 Copy quote
I am so used to seeing the sort of play which deals with one man and two women. They do not leave me with the feeling I have made a full theatrical meal they do not give me the experience of the multiplicity of life.

E. M. Forster

Men, Two, Play

16 Copy quote
Surely the only sound foundation for a civilization is a sound state of mind.

E. M. Forster

Civilization, Mind, Foundation

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

7 Copy quote
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

4 Copy quote
Let us think of people as starting life with an experience they forget and ending it with one which they anticipate but cannot understand.

E. M. Forster

Thinking, People, Forget

E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.76, RosettaBooks

4 Copy quote
It was unbearable, and he thought again, 'How unhappy I am!' and became happier.

E. M. Forster

Unhappy, Unbearable

E. M. Forster (2010). “A Passage to India”, p.56, RosettaBooks

4 Copy quote
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

7 Copy quote
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".

4 Copy quote
I have almost completed a long novel, but it is unpublishable until my death and England's.

E. M. Forster

Long, England, Novel

"E. M. Forster: A New Life". Book by Wendy Moffat, p. 174, April 4, 2011.

4 Copy quote
I really don't know what happens next -- one so seldom does.

E. M. Forster

Doe, Next, Happens

4 Copy quote
An efficiency-regime cannot be run without a few heroes stuck about it to carry off the dullness - much as plums have to be put into bad pudding to make it palatable.

E. M. Forster

Running, Hero, Pudding

"What I Believe". Essay by E. M. Forster, "The Nation", July 16, 1938.

4 Copy quote
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

4 Copy quote
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.

4 Copy quote
Either life entails courage, or it ceases to be life.

E. M. Forster

Courage, Literature, Be Courageous

"Pharos and Pharillon" by E.M. Forster, 1923.

9 Copy quote
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

4 Copy quote
Some leave our life with tears, others with an insane frigidity; Mrs. Wilcox had taken the middle course, which only rarer natures can pursue. She had kept proportion. She had told a little of her grim secret to her friends, but not too much; she had shut up her heart--almost, but not entirely. It is thus, if there is any rule, that we ought to die--neither as victim nor as fanatic, but as the seafarer who can greet with an equal eye the deep that he is entering, and the shore that he must leave.

E. M. Forster

Taken, Heart, Eye

E. M. Forster (2016). “Howards End: England Literature”, p.86, 谷月社

4 Copy quote
I seem fated to pass through the world without colliding with it or moving it — and I'm sure I can't tell you whether the fate's good or evil. I don't die — I don't fall in love. And if other people die or fall in love they always do it when I'm just not there.

E. M. Forster

Falling In Love, Moving, Fate

E. M. Forster (2012). “Where Angels Fear to Tread”, p.96, Courier Corporation

4 Copy quote
One doesn't come to Italy for niceness," was the retort; "one comes for life. Buon giorno! Buon giorno!

E. M. Forster

Retorts, Niceness

E. M. Forster (2016). “A Room With A View: England Literature”, p.14, 谷月社

4 Copy quote
The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave. Otherwise he will move in a world of the dead. He can only gain that conception through personal experience, and he can only use his personal experiences when he is a genius.

E. M. Forster

Moving, Men, Gains

4 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Lytton Strachey

E. M. Forster

Follow

Born: January 1, 1879
Died: June 7, 1970
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

Popular Topics