Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.
E. M. ForsterRead
Don't be mysterious; there isn't the time.
Interpretation
Embrace transparency and honesty, as time is limited for misunderstandings.
E. M. Forster's quote encourages people to avoid being elusive or secretive in their interactions, suggesting that life is too short to engage in mystery. Instead, it advocates for clear communication and authenticity, emphasizing that misunderstandings can be detrimental and that we should make the most of our time with each other by being open and honest.
In practice
In a team meeting, to encourage open dialogue, one might say, 'As Forster said, donβt be mysterious; there isnβt the time.'
Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.
A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.
One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.
Oxford is Oxford: not a mere receptacle for youth, like Cambridge. Perhaps it wants its inmates to love it rather than to love one another.
The fact is we can only love what we know personally. And we cannot know much. In public affairs, in the rebuilding of civilization, something less dramatic and emotional is needed, namely tolerance.
One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested.
I am very conscious that you can't condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours.
It must be a peace without victory... Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between equals can last.
If you remember your past too well you start blaming your present for it. Look what they did to me, that's what caused me to be like this, it's not my fault. Permit me to correct you: it probably is your fault. And kindly spare me the details.
The unspeakable visions of the individual.
The virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked man does in actual life.
Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion
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