690 Quotes by E. M. Forster

Chess is a forcing house where the fruits of character can ripen more fully than in life.

Secrecy has this disadvantage: we lose the sense of proportion; we cannot tell whether our secret is important or not.

A slow nature such as Maurice’s appears insensitive, for it needs time even to feel. Its instinct is to assume that nothing either for good or evil has happened, and to resist the invader. Once gripped, it feels acutely, and its sensations in love are particularly profound. Given time, it can know and impart ecstasy; given time, it can sink to the heart of Hell.

I am actually what my age and my upbringing have made me – a bourgeois who adheres to the British constitution, adheres to it rather than supports it, and the fact that this isn’t dignified doesn’t worry me.

I’m a holy man minus the holiness. Hand that on to your three spies, and tell them to put it in their pipes.

Can what they call civilization be right, if people mayn’t die in the room where they were born?

You want to love everyone equally, and that’s worse than impossible – it’s wrong.

It happened like this, if it happened at all. I would rather go up to heaven by myself than be pushed by cherubs.

He had awoken too late for happiness, but not for strength, and could feel an austere joy, as of a warrior who is homeless but stands fully armed.