E. M. Forster Quotes - Page 12

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Passion should believe itself irresistible. It should forget civility and consideration and all the other curses of a refined nature. Above all, it should never ask for leave where there is a right of way.

E. M. Forster

Believe, Passion, Way

E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.435, Delphi Classics

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A work of art is never finished. It is merely abandoned.

E. M. Forster

Art, Science, Abandoned

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'A friend,' he repeated, sentimental suddenly. 'Someone to last your whole life and you his. I suppose such a thing can't really happen outside sleep.'

E. M. Forster

Dream, Sleep, Lasts

"Maurice".

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You do care a little for me, I know... but nothing to speak of, and you don't love me. I was yours once till death if you'd cared to keep me, but I'm someone else's now... and he's mine in a way that shocks you, but why don't you stop being shocked, and attend to your own happiness.

E. M. Forster

Care, Littles, Way

E M Forster (2011). “Maurice”, p.204, Hachette UK

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This solitude opressed her; she was accustomed to have her thoughts confirmed by others or, at all events, contradicted; it was too dreadful not to know whether she was thinking right or wrong.

E. M. Forster

Thinking, Solitude, Events

E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.386, Delphi Classics

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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

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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

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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”

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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Let her go to Italy!" he cried. "Let her meddle with what she doesn't understand!

E. M. Forster

Let Her Go, Cried

E. M. Forster (2016). “Where Angels Fear to Tread: England Literature”, p.63, 谷月社

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If God could tell the story of the Universe, the Universe would become fictitious.

E. M. Forster

Stories, Ifs, Universe

E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.87, RosettaBooks

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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

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Take an old man's word; there's nothing worse than a muddle in all the world. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror - on the things that I might have avoided. We can help one another but little. I used to think I could teach young people the whole of life, but I know better now, and all my teaching of George has come down to this: beware of muddle.

E. M. Forster

Teaching, Fate, Men

E.M. Forster (2016). “A Room With a View (Diversion Classics)”, p.224, Diversion Books

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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Culture had worked in her own case, but during the last few weeks she had doubted whether it humanized the majority, so wide and so widening is the gulf that stretches between the natural and the philosophic man, so many the good chaps who are wrecked in trying to cross it.

E. M. Forster

Men, Trying, Majority

E.M. Forster “Howards End”, Рипол Классик

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But nothing in India is identifiable, the mere asking of a question causes it to disappear or to merge in something else.

E. M. Forster

India, Asking, Literature

'A Passage to India' (1924) ch. 8

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“It is Fate that I am here,” persisted George. “But you can call it Italy if it makes you less unhappy.”

E. M. Forster

Fate, Unhappy, Room With A View

"Collected Works of E. M. Forster".

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A funeral is not death, any more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy devices, coming now too late, now too early, by which Society would register the quick motions of man.

E. M. Forster

Death, Men, Funeral

E.M. Forster (2015). “Howards End”, p.101, Sheba Blake Publishing

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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

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E. M. Forster

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

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