E. M. Forster Quotes

One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life... view

By: E. M. Forster

Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don't believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art's sake... view

By: E. M. Forster

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote... view

By: E. M. Forster

What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?.. view

By: E. M. Forster

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us... view

By: E. M. Forster

We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand... view

By: E. M. Forster

We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship... view

By: E. M. Forster

We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet... view

By: E. M. Forster

We are all like Scheherazade's husband, in that we want to know what happens next... view

By: E. M. Forster

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

By: E. M. Forster

I'm a holy man minus the holiness... view

By: E. M. Forster

I am certainly an ought and not a must... view

By: E. M. Forster

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... view

By: E. M. Forster

I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars... view

By: E. M. Forster

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... view

By: E. M. Forster

I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country... view

By: E. M. Forster

Logic! Good gracious! What rubbish!.. view

By: E. M. Forster

It is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness... view

By: E. M. Forster

I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I'd like to be... view

By: E. M. Forster

For our vanity is such that we hold our own characters immutable, and we are slow to acknowledge that they have changed, even for the better... view

By: E. M. Forster

Two cheers for Democracy.. view

By: E. M. Forster

Ideas are fatal to caste... view

By: E. M. Forster

Unless we remember we cannot understand... view

By: E. M. Forster

Liking one person is an extra reason for liking another... view

By: E. M. Forster

Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice... view

By: E. M. Forster

Letters have to pass two tests before they can be classed as good: they must express the personality both of the writer and of the recipient... view

By: E. M. Forster

I have no mystic faith in the people. I have in the individual... view

By: E. M. Forster

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

By: E. M. Forster

If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country... view

By: E. M. Forster

A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself... view

By: E. M. Forster

America is rather like life. You can usually find in it what you look for. It will probably be interesting, and it is sure to be large... view

By: E. M. Forster

At night, when the curtains are drawn and the fire flickers, my books attain a collective dignity... view

By: E. M. Forster

At the side of the everlasting why, is a yes, and a yes, and a yes... view

By: E. M. Forster

Be soft, even if you stand to get squashed... view

By: E. M. Forster

How can I know what I think till I see what I say?.. view

By: E. M. Forster

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

By: E. M. Forster

History develops, art stands still... view

By: E. M. Forster

Charm, in most men and nearly all women, is a decoration... view

By: E. M. Forster

Creative writers are always greater than the causes that they represent... view

By: E. M. Forster

Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him... view

By: E. M. Forster

Either life entails courage, or it ceases to be life... view

By: E. M. Forster

England has always been disinclined to accept human nature... view

By: E. M. Forster