E. M. Forster Quotes - Page 8

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Failure or success seems to have been allotted to men by their stars. But they retain the power of wriggling, of fighting with their star or against it, and in the whole universe the only really interesting movement is the wriggle.

E. M. Forster

Stars, Failure, Fighting

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Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man.

E. M. Forster

Men, Symphony, Sublime

Howards End (1910) ch. 5

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Freedom does not guarantee masterpieces.

E. M. Forster

Doe, Guarantees, Masterpiece

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Towns are after all excrescences, grey fluxions, where men, hurrying to find one another, have lost themselves.

E. M. Forster

Men, Towns, Lost

"Collected Works of E. M. Forster".

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The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way. If it never surprises it is flat. Flat characters ... in their purest form ... are constructed round a single idea or quality; when there is more than one factor to them, we get the beginning of the curve toward the round. The really flat character can be experessed in one sentence such as, "I will never desert Mr Micawber." There is Mrs Micawber - she says she won't desert Mr Micawber; she doesn't, and there she is.

E. M. Forster

Character, Curves, Ideas

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By the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes--a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes.

E. M. Forster

Sides, Room With A View, Everlasting

E.M. Forster (2012). “A Room with a View”, p.22, Courier Corporation

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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

Men, Literature, Objects

"Commonplace Book".

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If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting--both for us and for her.

E. M. Forster

Play, Missing, Exciting

E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.374, Delphi Classics

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...though nothing is damaged, everything is changed.

E. M. Forster

Changed

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Chess is a forcing house where the fruits of character can ripen more fully than in life

E. M. Forster

Character, House, Chess

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Those who search for truth are too conscious of the maze to be hard on others...

E. M. Forster

Mazes, Conscious, Hard

"The Life to Come (and Other Stories)". Book by E. M. Forster, 1972.

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A facade of skyscrapers facing a lake and behind the facade, every type of dubiousness.

E. M. Forster

Lakes, Cities, Chicago

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Life's very difficult and full of surprises. At all events, I've got as far as that. To be humble and kind, to go straight ahead, to love people rather than pity them, to remember the submerged - well, one can't do all these things at once, worse luck, because they're so contradictory. It's then that proportion comes in - to live by proportion. 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

Humble, People, Luck

E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.580, Delphi Classics

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No disease of the imagination is so difficult to cure, as that which is complicated with the dread of guilt : fancy and conscience then act interchangeably upon us, and so often shift their places, that the illusions of one are not distinguished from the dictates of the other.

E. M. Forster

Imagination, Guilt, Disease

E. M. Forster (1987). “Commonplace Book”, p.76, Stanford University Press

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Tolerance is a very dull virtue. It is boring. Unlike love, it has always had a bad press. It is negative. It merely means putting up with people, being able to stand things.

E. M. Forster

Love, Mean, People

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

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I would rather be a coward than brave because people hurt you when you are brave.

E. M. Forster

Hurt, Fear, People

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Life - No, I've nothing to teach you about it for the moment. May be writing about it another week.

E. M. Forster

Life, Writing, May

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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

Friendship, Writing, Finals

E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.42, RosettaBooks

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Science is better than sympathy, if only it is science.

E. M. Forster

Sympathy, Ifs

E M Forster (2011). “Maurice”, p.175, Hachette UK

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It comes to this then: there always have been people like me and always will be, and generally they have been persecuted.

E. M. Forster

People, Like Me, Persecuted

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England has always been disinclined to accept human nature.

E. M. Forster

Literature, England, Human Nature

E M Forster (2011). “Maurice”, p.175, Hachette UK

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There is something majestic in the bad taste of Italy.

E. M. Forster

Literature, Taste, Majestic

E. M. Forster (2016). “Where Angels Fear to Tread: England Literature”, p.81, 谷月社

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Only a writer who has the sense of evil can make goodness readable.

E. M. Forster

Evil, Literature, Goodness

E. M. Forster (1987). “Commonplace Book”, p.18, Stanford University Press

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Suspense: the only literary tool that has any effect upon tyrants and savages.

E. M. Forster

Writing, Tyrants, Savages

E. M. Forster (2010). “Aspects of the Novel”, p.46, RosettaBooks

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I won't be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult.

E. M. Forster

Shields, Insult, Room With A View

E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.488, Delphi Classics

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

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