M. Forster
M. Forster
imagination guilt disease
No disease of the imagination is so difficult to cure, as that which is complicated with the dread of guilt : fancy and conscience then act interchangeably upon us, and so often shift their places, that the illusions of one are not distinguished from the dictates of the other.
self smell people
Self-pity ? I see no moral objections to it, the smell drives people away, but that's a practical objection, and occasionally an advantage.
trying cold daily-life
All this fame and money, which have so thrilled me when they came to others, leave me cold when they come to me. I am not an ascetic, but I don't know what to do with them, and my daily life has never been so trying, and there is no one to fill it emotionally.
filth pathos piety
Pathos, piety, courage, they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.
men heaven unity
All invitations must proceed from heaven perhaps; perhaps it is futile for men to initiate their own unity, they do but widen the gulfs between them by the attempt.
writing mean people
I have always found writing pleasant and don't understand what people mean by 'throes of creation.'
niece thinking anecdotes
Riposte of "that old lady in the anecdote who was accused by her nieces of being illogical," Logic! Good gracious! What rubbish! How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?
imagination wells
It is the starved imagination, not the well nourished, that is afraid.
paganism piety
Paganism is infectious, more infectious than diphtheria or piety.
house earth ifs
If there is on earth a house with many mansions, it is the house of words.
people individual mystic
I have no mystic faith in the people. I have in the individual.
dog flower gun
A sentence begins quite simply, then it undulates and expands, parentheses intervene like quick-set hedges, the flowers of comparison bloom, and three fields off, like a wounded partridge, crouches the principal verb, making one wonder as one picks it up, poor little thing, whether after all it was worth such a tramp, so many guns, and such expensive dogs, and what, after all, is its relation to the main subject, potted so gaily half a page back, and proving finally to have been in the accusative case.
liberty care heritage
The hungry and the homeless don't care about liberty any more than they care about cultural heritage. To pretend that they do care is cant.
sleep passion past
If only the sense of actuality can be lulled-and it sleeps for ever in most historians-there is no passion that cannot be gratified in the past.