690 Quotes by E. M. Forster

In Maurice I tried to create a character who was completely unlike myself or what I supposed myself to be: someone handsome, healthy, bodily attractive, mentally torpid, not a bad business man and rather a snob. Into this mixture I dropped an ingredient that puzzles him, wakes him up, torments him and finally saves him.

He will work off his crudities in time. I rather mistrust young men who slip into life gracefully.

Don't believe those lies about intellectual people. They're only written to soothe the majority.

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

Remember nothing of the sort! Built by faith indeed! That simply means the workmen weren't paid properly. And as for the frescoes, I see no truth in them. Look at that fat man in blue! He must weigh as much as I do, and he is shooting into the sky like an air- balloon.

لقد صنعنا «الآلة» لكي تنفِّذ إرادتنا، لكننا لا نملك أن ندفعها لتنفيذ إرادتنا الآن.. لقد سلبت منَّا الإحساس بالفضاء والإحساس باللمس.. لقد غيمت كل رابطة إنسانية وانتقصت من الحب ليبيت محض فعلٍ شهواني.. لقد شلَّت أجسادنا وإرادتنا.. والآن تجبرنا على عبادتها..

It is so difficult - at least, I find it difficult - to understand people who speak the truth.

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.

And don't, let me beg you, go with that awful tourist idea that Italy's only a museum of antiquities and art. Love and understand the Italians, for the people are more marvellous than the land