Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We can only love what we truly understand, which requires knowledge and familiarity, advocating for tolerance in wider societal matters.
E. M. Forster's quote emphasizes that genuine love stems from personal knowledge and understanding; however, in broader contexts such as public affairs and societal rebuilding, this deep emotional connection is often impractical. Therefore, tolerance becomes a necessary and pragmatic approach that allows us to coexist and work together despite knowing only fragments of each other's experiences.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about community cohesion, this quote can highlight the importance of understanding each other to foster love and tolerance.
More from E. M. Forster
All quotes →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.
One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested.
Don't be mysterious; there isn't the time.
Similar quotes
Sometimes you only need to have a few words with a person to know you would like to have many more.
Every hour that passed added to her grief, because it bore her further away from the living man, and because it was a tiny foretaste of the eternity she would have to spend without him.
When you say 'yes' to others, make sure you are not saying 'no' to yourself.
Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untravelled, the naive, the sophisticated deplore these formalities as 'empty,' 'meaningless,' or 'dishonest,' and scorn to use them. No matter how 'pure' their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.
There are different ways that kids who are gay take on the rejection and alienation they feel. The way I dealt with it was to say, 'You know what? You're imposing judgments on me and condemnations, but I don't accept them. I'm going to instead turn the light on you and see what your flaws are and impose the same judgmental standards on you.'
For the way loneliness is worse when you return to it after a reprieve—like the soul’s version of putting on a wet bathing suit, clammy and miserable.