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E.M. Forster: 400 quotes40 likes

“I distrust Great Men. They produce a desert of uniformity around them and often a pool of blood too, and I always feel a little man's pleasure when they come a cropper.”

E.M. Forster

What I Believe (1938)

“N. B. this book and pensées not important and the temptation to mistake them for Creation must be resisted.”

E.M. Forster

Source: Commonplace Book (1985), p. 155 (1943)

“All this fame and money, which have so thrilled me when they came to others, leave me cold when they come to me. I am not an ascetic, but I don't know what to do with them, and my daily life has never been so trying, and there is no one to fill it emotionally.”

E.M. Forster

Letter 251, to Florence Barger, 23 December 1924
Selected Letters (1983-1985)

“Today 29-9-34 ion the garden, rockery side, looking up to the house where Bone was working, sky bluish, very gentle, I looked without theories or self consciousness. This happens very seldom, though I can prolong the delight if I prevent my engines from restarting.”

E.M. Forster

Source: Commonplace Book (1985), p. 95

“Science, when applied to personal relationships, is always just wrong.”

E.M. Forster

Letter 231, to W. J. H. Sprott, 28 June 1923
Selected Letters (1983-1985)

“The story of the Fall always fascinates me as a play ground, but I cannot find any profound meaning in it, because of my 'liberal' view of human nature: I cannot believe in a state of original innocence, still less in a profound meaning in it, and I am always minimising the conception and the extent of Sin and the sinfulness of sex.”

E.M. Forster

Letter 396, to Eric Fletcher, 9 July 1951
Selected Letters (1983-1985)

“Had she only realized that it is only hypocrites who cannot forgive hypocrisy, whereas those who search for truth are too conscious of the maze to be hard on others – than the bitter flow of her thoughts might have been stopped and the catastrophe averted. But it was not conceivable to her that he should forgive – or that she should accept forgiveness, for to her forgiveness meant a triumph of one person over another.”

E.M. Forster

Albergo Empedocle
The Life to Come and other stories (1972)

“The more highly public life is organized the lower does its morality sink; the nations of today behave to each other worse than they ever did in the past, they cheat, rob, bully and bluff, make war without notice, and kill as many women and children as possible; whereas primitive tribes were at all events restrained by taboos.”

E.M. Forster

What I Believe (1938)

“Peacefulness to be found in writing. Why do I not write every day? Partly because I feel I ought to write well and know I can't. But that is not a good enough reason for not writing, if it gains me poise & peace.”

E.M. Forster

Source: Commonplace Book (1985), p. 219 (1960)

“All invitations must proceed from heaven perhaps; perhaps it is futile for men to initiate their own unity, they do but widen the gulfs between them by the attempt.”

E.M. Forster book A Passage to India

Source: A Passage to India (1924), Ch. 4

“I know very well how limited and how open to criticism, English freedom is. It is race-bound and it's class-bound. It means freedom for the Englishman, but not for the subject-races of his Empire. If you invite the average Englishman to share his liberties with the inhabitants of India or Kenya, he will reply, "Never," if he is a Tory, and "Not until I consider them worthy" if he is a Liberal.”

E.M. Forster

"Liberty In England", Speech (June 21, 1935), reprinted in Abinger Harvest (1936).

“This conversation taught me that some of us can meet reality on this side of the grave. I do not envy them. Such adventures may profit the disembodied soul, but as long as I have flesh and blood I pray that my grossness preserve me. Our lower nature has its dreams. Mine is of a certain farm, windy but fruitful, half-way between the deserted moorland and the uninhabitable sea. Hither, at rare intervals, she should descend and he ascend, to shatter their spiritual communion by one caress.”

E.M. Forster

The Rock
The Life to Come and other stories (1972)

“In these English farms, if anywhere, one might see life steadily and see it whole, group in one vision its transitoriness and its eternal youth, connect — connect without bitterness until all men are brothers.”

E.M. Forster book Howards End

Source: Howards End (1910), Ch. 33

“Naked I came into this world, naked I shall go out of it. And a very good thing too, for it reminds me that I am naked under my shirt, whatever its colour.”

E.M. Forster

What I Believe (1938)

“His hand came nearer, his eyes danced round the room, which began to fill with a golden haze. He beckoned, and Clesant moved into his arms. Clesand had often been proud of his disease but never, never of his body, it had never occurred to him that he could provoke desire. This sudden revelation shattered him, he fell from his pedestal, but not alone, there was someone to cling to, broad shoulders, a sunburnt throat, lips that parted as they touched him to murmur – ‘And to hell with Woolacott’.”

E.M. Forster

Dr Woolacott
The Life to Come and other stories (1972)

“The newspapers still talk about glory but the average man, thank God, has got rid of that illusion. It is a damned bore, with a stall mate as the most probable outcome, but one has to see it through, and see it through with the knowledge that whichever side wins, civilisation in Europe will be pipped for the next 30 years. Don't indulge in Romance here, Malcolm, or suppose that an era of jolly little nationalities is dawning. We shall be much too much occupied with pestilence and poverty to reconstruct.”

E.M. Forster

Letter 136, to Malcolm Darling, 6 November 1914
Selected Letters (1983-1985)

“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

What I Believe (1938)

“Hardship is vanishing, but so is style, and the two are more closely connected than the present generation supposes.”

E.M. Forster

"Cambridge"
Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)

“Probable that I am now better than most people and as good as I ever shall be at this game, and can therefore get to know anyone I wish, provided I am not physically repellent. And perhaps this is why personal relationships no longer seem to me a serious branch of study.”

E.M. Forster

Source: Commonplace Book (1985), p. 45

“[Before the prostate operation] I feel gay and calm, but have an open mind as to whether I shall get through or not[. ] I don't say this to anyone else, but I love you too much to say anything but the truth. I don't feel afraid of anything and it is your love that has made me be like this. I hope to come back to you and everything and be as before, and I will try my best to do so.”

E.M. Forster

Letter 311, to Robert J. Buckingham, 17 December 1935
Selected Letters (1983-1985)