Quote

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.

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
Leave
Shore
Dies
Victim
Eye
Thus
Must
Rule
Neither
Greet
Deep
Fanatic
Equal
Fanatics
Ought
Entering

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He had shown her all the workings of his soul, mistaking this for love.
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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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Ah, but you see, I didn't want to be fair.
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English literature is a flying fish.
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Only connect!...Only connect the prose and the passion.
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But after all, what have we to do with taverns? Real menace belongs to the drawing-room.
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She loved him absolutely, perhaps for half an hour.
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Humility is a quality for which I have only a limited admiration. In many phases of life it is a great mistake and degenerates into defensiveness or hypocrisy.
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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.
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You confuse what's important with what's impressive.
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One grows accustomed to being praised, or being blamed, or being advised, but it is unusual to be understood.
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We may divide characters into flat and round.
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But Humanity, in its desire for comfort, had over-reached itself. It had exploited the riches of nature too far. Quietly and complacently, it was sinking into decadence, and progress had come to mean the progress of the Machine.
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I believe in teaching people to be individuals, and to understand other individuals.
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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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Intuition attracts those who wish to be spiritual without any bother, because it promises a heaven where the intuitions of others can be ignored.
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Self-pity? I see no moral objections to it, the smell drives people away, but that's a practical objection, and occasionally an advantage.
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