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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.

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
Novel
Develop
Develops
Lying
Historical
Coat
Success
Subject
Coats
Words
Fronts
Passes
Doe
Front
Acquire
Quicksilver
Matter
Lies
Fresh
Sensitiveness
Subjects
Mirror
Acquires
Gets
Mirrors
Pageant

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Of course he despised the world as a whole every thoughtful man should it is almost a test of refinement.
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Man has to pick up the use of his functions as he goes along- especially the function of Love.
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One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested.
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I would rather be a coward than brave because people hurt you when you are brave.
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When we were only acquaintances, you let me be myself, but now you're always protecting me... I won't be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult. Can't I be trusted to face the truth but I must get it second-hand through you? A woman's place!
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Only connect!...Only connect the prose and the passion.
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Very notable was his distinction between coarseness and vulgarity, coarseness, revealing something vulgarity, concealing something.
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I am so used to seeing the sort of play which deals with one man and two women. They do not leave me with the feeling I have made a full theatrical meal they do not give me the experience of the multiplicity of life.
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My law-givers are Erasmus and Montaigne, not Moses and St Paul.
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Without form, the sensitiveness vanishes.
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I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars.
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She must be assured that it is not a criminal offense to love at first sight.
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Words deserted him immediately. He could only speak when he was not asked to.
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All that is observable in a man-that is to say his actions and such of his spiritual existence as can be deduced from his actions-falls into the domain of history.
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I don't know what to think until I see what I've said.
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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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But after all, what have we to do with taverns? Real menace belongs to the drawing-room.
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As long as learning is connected with earning, as long as certain jobs can only be reached through exams, so long must we take the examination system seriously. If another ladder to employment was contrived, much so-called education would disappear, and no one be a penny the stupider.
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Creative writers are always greater than the causes that they represent.
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There is an aristocracy of the sensitive. They represent the true human tradition of permanent victory over cruelty and chaos.
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