Quote

The tragedy of preparedness has scarcely been handled, save by the Greeks. Life is indeed dangerous, but not in the way morality would have us believe. It is indeed unmanageable, but the essence of it is not a battle. It is unmanageable because it is a romance, and its essence is romantic beauty.

E. M. Forster

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E. M. Forster
Age: 91 †
Born: 1879
Born: January 1
Died: 1970
Died: June 7
Biographer
Essayist
Librettist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
London
England
Edward Morgan Forster
E Forster
EM Forster
Beauty
Romance
Believe
Tragedy
Unmanageable
Way
Indeed
Preparedness
Would
Morality
Handled
Life
Save
Greeks
Essence
Scarcely
Battle
Greek
Dangerous
Romantic

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It makes a difference doesn't it, whether we fully fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?
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Letters have to pass two tests before they can be classed as good: they must express the personality both of the writer and of the recipient.
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Ulysses ... is a dogged attempt to cover the universe with mud, an inverted Victorianism, an attempt to make crossness and dirt succeed where sweetness and light failed, a simplification of the human character in the interests of Hell.
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The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected.
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There's never any great risk as long as you have money.
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The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is never taken.
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English literature is a flying fish.
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He educated Maurice, or rather his spirit educated Maurice's spirit, for they themselves became equal. Neither thought Am I led am I leading? Love had caught him out of triviality and Maurice out of bewilderment in order that two imperfect souls might touch perfection.
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I really don't know what happens next -- one so seldom does.
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Do you suppose there's any difference between spring in nature and spring in man? But there we go, praising the one and condemning the other as improper, ashamed that the same laws work eternally through both.
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Paganism is infectious, more infectious than diphtheria or piety.
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Expansion, that is the idea the novelist must cling to, not completion, not rounding off, but opening out.
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A work of art is never finished. It is merely abandoned.
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If God could tell the story of the Universe, the Universe would become fictitious.
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The present flowed by them like a stream. The tree rustled. It had made music before they were born, and would continue after their deaths, but its song was of the moment. The moment had passed. The tree rustled again. Their senses were sharpened, and they seemed to apprehend life. Life passed. The tree rustled again.
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Man can learn everything if he will but try.
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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.
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Their quarrel was no more surprising than are most quarrels — inevitable at the time, incredible afterwards.
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