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
Battle
Greek
Dangerous
Romantic
Beauty
Romance
Believe
Tragedy
Unmanageable
Way
Indeed
Preparedness
Would
Morality
Handled
Life
Save
Greeks
Essence
Scarcely

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You want to love everyone equally, and that's worse than impossible--it's wrong.
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They cared for no one, they were outside humanity, and death, had it come, would only have continued their pursuit of a retreating horizon.
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A novel must give a sense of permanence as well as a sense of life.
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A work of art is never finished. It is merely abandoned.
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The work of art assumes the existence of the perfect spectator, and is indifferent to the fact that no such person exists.
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They had nothing in common but the English language.
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Books have to be read it is the only way of discovering what they contain.
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My law-givers are Erasmus and Montaigne, not Moses and St Paul.
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While her lips talked culture, her heart was planning to invite him to tea
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All men are equal — all men, that is to say, who possess umbrellas.
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I'd far rather leave a thought behind me than a child. Other people can have children.
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When love flies it is remembered not as love but as something else. Blessed are the uneducated, who forget it entirely, and are never conscious of folly or pruriency in the past, of long aimless conversations.
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I really don't know what happens next -- one so seldom does.
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We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
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I do like Christmas on the whole.... In its clumsy way, it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But it is clumsier every year.
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Books have to be read (worse luck it takes so long a time). It is the only way of discovering what they contain. A few savage tribes eat them, but reading is the only method of assimilation revealed to the West.
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Creative writers are always greater than the causes that they represent.
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Pathos, piety, courage, they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.
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There lies at the back of every creed something terrible and hard for which the worshipper may one day be required to suffer.
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