690 Quotes by E. M. Forster

Only connect!

Science explained people, but could not understand them. After long centuries among the bones and muscles it might be advancing to knowledge of the nerves, but this would never give understanding.

Neanderthal man listened to stories, if one may judge by the shape of his skull.

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

He had robbed the body of its taint, the world’s taunts of their sting; he had shown her the holiness of direct desire.

Your soul, dear Lucy! I hate the word now, because of all the cant with which superstition has wrapped it round. But we have souls, and I see you ruining yours. I cannot bear it.

It is thus, if there is any rule, that we ought to die – neither as victim nor as fanatic, but as the seafarer who can greet with an equal eye the deep that he is entering, and the shore that he must leave.

A mirror does not develop because an historical pageant passes in front of it. It only develops when it gets a fresh coat of quicksilver in other words, when it acquires new sensitiveness; and the novel’s success lies in its own sensitiveness, not in the success of its subject matter.

We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won’t do harm – yes, choose a place where you won’t do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.