E. M. Forster Quotes - Page 14

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The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is never taken.

E. M. Forster

Strength, Success, Taken

E. M. Forster (2012). “Howards End”, p.76, Courier Corporation

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Do you suppose there's any difference between spring in nature and spring in man? But there we go, praising the one and condemning the other as improper, ashamed that the same laws work eternally through both.

E. M. Forster

Spring, Men, Law

E. M. Forster (2016). “A Room With A View: England Literature”, p.56, 谷月社

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This element of surprise or mystery the detective element as it is sometimes rather emptily called is of great importance in a plot.

E. M. Forster

Plot, Elements, Detectives

E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.132, RosettaBooks

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Riposte of "that old lady in the anecdote who was accused by her nieces of being illogical," Logic! Good gracious! What rubbish! How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?

E. M. Forster

Niece, Thinking, Anecdotes

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The sadness of the incomplete, the sadness that is often Life, but should never be Art.

E. M. Forster

Art, Sadness, Should

E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.446, Delphi Classics

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Oxford is Oxford: not a mere receptacle for youth, like Cambridge. Perhaps it wants its inmates to love it rather than to love one another.

E. M. Forster

Love, College, Oxford

E.M. Forster (2015). “Howard's End”, p.96, Xist Publishing

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I have said that each aspect of the novel demands a different quality of the reader. Well, the prophetic aspect demands two qualities: humility and the suspension of the sense of humour.

E. M. Forster

Humility, Two, Empathy

E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.183, RosettaBooks

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Love felt and returned, love which our bodies exact and our hearts have transfigured, love which is the most real thing that we shall ever meet, reappeared now as the world's enemy, and she must stifle it.

E. M. Forster

Real, Heart, Enemy

E. M. Forster (2016). “A Room With A View: England Literature”, p.144, 谷月社

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As long as learning is connected with earning, as long as certain jobs can only be reached through exams, so long must we take the examination system seriously. If another ladder to employment was contrived, much so-called education would disappear, and no one be a penny the stupider.

E. M. Forster

Jobs, Long, Would Be

"Aspects of the Novel". Book by E. M. Forster, 1927.

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The idea that nations should love one another, or that business concerns or marketing boards should love one another, or that a man in Portugal should love a man in Peru of whom he has never heard -it is absurd, unreal, dangerous. The fact is we can only love what we know personally. And we cannot know much.

E. M. Forster

Love, Men, Ideas

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A novelist can shift view-point if it comes off. ... Indeed, this power to expand and contract perception (of which the shifting view-point is a symptom), this right to intermittent knowledge - I find one of the great advantages of the novel-form ... this intermittence lends in the long run variety and colour to the experiences we receive.

E. M. Forster

Running, Views, Long

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Do you remember Italy?

E. M. Forster

Remember

E.M. Forster (2012). “A Room with a View”, p.162, Courier Corporation

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Very notable was his distinction between coarseness and vulgarity, coarseness, revealing something; vulgarity, concealing something.

E. M. Forster

Vulgarity Is, Revealing Something, Literature

'The Longest Journey' (1907) ch. 26

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Man has to pick up the use of his functions as he goes along- especially the function of Love.

E. M. Forster

Men, Use, Function

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

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One marvels why the middle classes still insist on so much discomfort for their children at such expense to themselves.

E. M. Forster

Children, Class, Literature

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When we were only acquaintances, you let me be myself, but now you're always protecting me... I won't be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult. Can't I be trusted to face the truth but I must get it second-hand through you? A woman's place!

E. M. Forster

Hands, Shields, Faces

E. M. Forster (2016). “A Room With A View: England Literature”, p.154, 谷月社

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Why can't we be friends now?" said the other, holding him affectionately. "It's what I want. It's what you want." But the horses didn't want it — they swerved apart: the earth didn't want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temple, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came into view as they emerged from the gap and saw Mau beneath: they didn't want it, they said in their hundred voices "No, not yet," and the sky said "No, not there.

E. M. Forster

Horse, Rocks, Views

E. M. Forster (2010). “A Passage to India”, p.322, RosettaBooks

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For a wonderful physical tie binds the parents to the children; and - by some sad, strange irony - it does not bind us children to our parents. For if it did, if we could answer their love not with gratitude but with equal love, life would lose much of its pathos and much of its squalor, and we might be wonderfully happy.

E. M. Forster

Gratitude, Children, Love Life

E. M. Forster (2015). “Where Angels Fear to Tread”, p.109, Booklassic

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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.

E. M. Forster

Men, August, Poetry

E. M. Forster (2010). “A Passage to India”, p.211, RosettaBooks

27 Copy quote
Paganism is infectious, more infectious than diphtheria or piety.

E. M. Forster

Literature, Paganism, Piety

E. M. Forster (2016). “A Room With A View: England Literature”, p.133, 谷月社

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Neanderthal man listened to stories, if one may judge by the shape of his skull.

E. M. Forster

Men, Skulls, Judging

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There's enough sorrow in the world, isn't there, without trying to invent it.

E. M. Forster

Sorrow, Trying, World

E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.371, Delphi Classics

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Tolerance is just a makeshift, suitable for an overcrowded and overheated planet. It carries on when love gives out, and love generally gives out as soon as we move away from our home and our friends.

E. M. Forster

Moving, Home, Giving

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

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In the novel we can know people perfectly, and, apart from the general pleasure of reading, we can find here a compensation for their dimness in life.

E. M. Forster

Reading, People, Understanding

E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.98, RosettaBooks

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She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own soul, and in the soul of every man. Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.

E. M. Forster

Love, Passion, Men

Howards End (1910) ch. 22 (the title-page also has "Only connect...")

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

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