90 quotes
Adventures do occur, but not punctually.
A Passage to India (1924)
Pathos, piety, courage, — they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.
A Passage to India (1924)
To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art; men can only make us feel small in the wrong way.
Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)
If God could tell the story of the Universe, the Universe would become fictitious.
Aspects of the Novel (1927)
Love is a great force in private life; it is indeed the greatest of all things; but love in public affairs does not work.
Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)
Music is the deepest of the arts and deep beneath the arts.
There is fascism, leading only into the blackness which it has chosen as its symbol … It means change without hope. Our immediate duty … is to stop it.
If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.
Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)
How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?
Aspects of the Novel (1927)
N.B. this book and pensées not important and the temptation to mistake them for Creation must be resisted.
Commonplace Book (1985)
In these English farms, if anywhere, one might see life steadily and see it whole, group in one vision its transitoriness and its eternal youth, connect — connect without bitterness until all men are brothers.
Howards End (1910)
Nonsense and beauty have close connections — closer connections than Art will allow.
Think before you speak is criticism's motto; speak before you think is creation's.
Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)
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.
A Passage to India (1924)
I don't think literature will be purged until its philosophic pretentiousness is extruded, and I shant live to see that purge, nor perhaps when it has happened will anything survive.
Commonplace Book (1985)
This slight humorous anti-Semitism is characteristic. Not until the present century did the British middle classes realise what jokes about Jews can lead to.
American women shoot the hippopotamus with eyebrows made of platinum.
They sowed the duller vegetables first, and a pleasant feeling of righteous fatigue stole over them as they addressed themselves to the peas.
Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905)
There's nothing like a debate to teach one quickness. I often wish I had gone in for them when I was a youngster. It would have helped me no end.
Howards End (1910)
I shall arrange a lady with breasts like mangoes.
A Passage to India (1924)