“The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal.”
Respect
“Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him.”
DeathAll Quotes by E. M. Forster
“Beauty ought to look a little surprised: it is the emotion that best suits her face. The beauty who does not look surprised, who accepts her position as her due - she reminds us too much of a prima donna.”
Beauty“The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave. Otherwise he will move in a world of the dead. He can only gain that conception through personal experience, and he can only use his personal experiences when he is a genius.”
Experience“Charm, in most men and nearly all women, is a decoration.”
Women“Either life entails courage, or it ceases to be life.”
Courage“The work of art assumes the existence of the perfect spectator, and is indifferent to the fact that no such person exists.”
Art“One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.”
Trust“A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.”
Poetry“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.”
Experience“What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?”
Good“The sadness of the incomplete, the sadness that is often Life, but should never be Art.”
Art“To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art men can only make us feel small in the wrong way.”
Art“One is certain of nothing but the truth of one's own emotions.”
Truth“If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”
Hope“History develops, art stands still.”
Art“Faith, to my mind, is a stiffening process, a sort of mental starch.”
Faith“Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him.”
Death“People have their own deaths as well as their own lives, and even if there is nothing beyond death, we shall differ in our nothingness.”
Death“What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.”
Great“England has always been disinclined to accept human nature.”
Nature