Quotessence
Home / Authors / E. M. Forster
E. M. Forster

E. M. Forster Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllLiteratureMenIfsPeopleRoom With A ViewHowards EndWorldHumansKnowsThinkingWayMayLittlesNovelWritingBelieveCharacterDoeBookLong

Famous E. M. Forster Quotes

“I distrust Great Men... I believe in aristocracy, though... Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet... They are sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.”

MenBelieveWellsAgeFoundI BelieveNationsUnderstandingSecretClassMembersJokesEndureI Believe InSensitiveGreat MenDistrustAristocracyPluckConsiderateFussy
Author:E. M. Forster
Create image

“Italy is such a delightful place to live in if you happen to be a man. There one may enjoy that exquisite luxury of Socialism--that true Socialism which is based not on equality of income or character, but on the equality of manners. In the democracy of the caffè or the street the great question of our life has been solved, and the brotherhood of man is a reality. But it is accomplished at the expense of the sisterhood of women.”

IfsMenMayHas BeensCharacterRealityHappensEnjoyDemocracyOur LivesStreetsIncomeSocialismLuxuryMannersAccomplishedExpensesBrotherhoodDelightfulBe A ManExquisiteSisterhoodPlaces To LiveBrotherhood Of Man
Book:Where Angels Fear to Tread: England Literature
Create image

“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.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsMenWorldLooksLittlesWholeHelpingMightFacesYoungUsedEasySoundTeachFateTeachingHorrorOld ManAvoidedBetter NowMuddle
Book:A Room With a View (Diversion Classics)
Create image

“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.”

MenMayBeautifulFormJoyDesireSunFailingSourceColdSorrowEuropeIndiaMythInfinityRetreatExquisiteAugustAccommodateDisillusionmentTreacherousSource Of LifePersephone
Author:E. M. Forster
Create image

“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.”

KnowsMenWorldWayMindImportantCountryWholeHomeGenerationsTroubleObjectsPromiseMouthsHundredIndiaTownsDepthRidiculousWhole WorldDefinedAppealsRetreatExileQuarrelsAugustWay HomeInvadersMalaise
Book:A Passage to India
Create image

“One minute. You know nothing about him. He probably has his own joys and interests- wife, children, snug little home. That's where we practical fellows'- he smiled-'are more tolerant than you intellectuals. We live and let live, and assume that things are jogging on fairly well elsewhere, and that the ordinary plain man may be trusted to look after his own affairs.”

KnowsMenWellsLooksMayChildrenLittlesHomeJoyInterestWifeMinutesOrdinaryFellowsAssumingAffairPracticalsElsewhereTrustedOne MinuteJoggingLive And Let Live
Book:Howards End
Create image

“This desire to govern a woman -- it lies very deep, and men and women must fight it together.... But I do love you surely in a better way then he does." He thought. "Yes -- really in a better way. I want you to have your own thoughts even when I hold you in my arms.”

MenWayWantDoeTogetherLyingDesireFightingLove YouArmsMen And WomenI Want YouBetter WaysVery DeepRoom With A View
Book:Literary Love: 5 Wild and Wanton Classics
Create image

“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.”

MenLoveHumansSoulWholeDiesPassionSalvationEvery ManHeightBeastIsolationProseSermonsFragmentsMonkExaltedLatentHuman LoveHowards End
Author:E. M. Forster
Create image

“I can only do what's easy. I can only entice and be enticed. I can't, and won't, attempt difficult relations. If I marry it will either be a man who's strong enough to boss me or whom I'm strong enough to boss. So I shan't ever marry, for there aren't such men. And Heaven help any one whom I do marry, for I shall certainly run away from him before you can say 'Jack Robinson.”

IfsMenI CanEnoughHelpingRunningStrongHeavenEasyDifficultRelationBossRunning AwayStrong EnoughBe A Man
Book:Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)
Create image

“It was not that ladies were inferior to men; it was that they were different. Their mission was to inspire others to achievement rather than to achieve themselves. Indirectly, by means of tact and a spotless name, a lady could accomplish much. But if she rushed into the fray herself she would be first censured, then despised, and finally ignored.”

IfsMenFirstsMeanDifferentWould BeNamesAchieveInspireAchievementAccomplishMissionsInferiorsIgnoredDespisedTactInspire OthersFrayRoom With A View
Book:Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)
Create image

“He built up a situation that was far enough from the truth. It never occurred to him that Helen was to blame. He forgot the intensity of their talk, the charm that had been lent him by sincerity, the magic of Oniton under darkness and of the whispering river. Helen loved the absolute. Leonard had been ruined absolutely, and had appeared to her as a man apart, isolated from the world. A real man, who cared for adventure and beauty, who desired to live decently and pay his way, who could have travelled more gloriously through life than the Juggernaut car that was crushing him.”

MenWorldWayRealEnoughPaySituationDarknessMagicCarAdventureBuiltRiversAbsolutesBlameCrushCharmIntensitySincerityIsolatedRuinedWhisperingReal MenHelenJuggernaut
Book:Howards End: England Literature
Create image

“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.”

KnowsMenLoveShouldIdeasFactsNationsHeardDangerousConcernTrue LoveMarketingAbsurdBoardsUnrealOnly LoveLove One AnotherPortugalPeru
Author:E. M. Forster
Create image

“Neanderthal man listened to stories, if one may judge by the shape of his skull. The primitive audience was an audience of shock-heads, gaping around the camp-fire, fatigued with contending against the mammoth or wooly-rhinoceros, and only kept awake by suspense. What would happen next? The novelist droned on, and as soon as the audience guessed what happened next, they either fell asleep or killed him.”

IfsMenMayStoriesHappensNextAudienceFireHappenedJudgingShapesCriticsSuspenseNovelistsAwakeShockEditorsCampsPrimitiveSkullsContendingNeanderthalsRhinoceros
Author:E. M. Forster
Create image

“In the light of her son's comment she reconsidered the scene at the mosque, to see whose impression was correct. Yes it could be worked into quite an unpleasant scene. The doctor had begun by bullying her, had said Mrs Callendar was nice, and then - finding the ground safe - had changed; he had alternately whined over his grievances and patronized her, had run a dozen ways in a single sentence, had been unreliable, inquisitive, vain. Yes, it was all true, but how false as a summary of the man; the essential life of him had been slain.”

MenWaySaidLightRunningNiceChangedHe ManSonSceneSafeEssentialsFindingsDoctorsSentencesImpressionVainBullyingCommentDozenGrievanceMosquesUnreliableSummaryInquisitiveSingle Sentence
Author:E. M. Forster
Create image