Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.
E. M. ForsterRead
The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Humanism emphasizes the importance of curiosity, freedom of thought, appreciation for aesthetics, and faith in humanity.
E. M. Forster's quote highlights the core characteristics of humanism as crucial elements that define a positive human experience. It suggests that curiosity drives knowledge and understanding, a free mind allows for the exploration of ideas beyond conventional boundaries, good taste cultivates an appreciation of beauty and quality, and an inherent belief in the goodness of humanity fosters hope and cooperation among people.
Themes
HumanismCuriosityFreedomGoodnessTaste
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on human values, I shared this quote to emphasize the importance of curiosity in education.
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.
E. M. ForsterRead
One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.
E. M. ForsterRead
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.
E. M. ForsterRead
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.
E. M. ForsterRead
One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested.
E. M. ForsterRead
Similar quotes
The law has no claim to human respect. It has no civilizing mission; its only purpose is to protect exploitation.
Peter KropotkinRead
All stories are true,” Skarpi said. “But this one really happened, if that’s what you mean.” He took another slow drink, then smiled again, his bright eyes dancing. “More or less. You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way. Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.
Patrick RothfussRead
You’re like a lighthouse shining beside the sea of humanity, motionless: all you can see is your own reflection in the water. You’re alone, so you think it’s a vast, magnificent panorama. You haven’t sounded the depths. You simply believe in the beauty of God’s creation. But I have spent all this time in the water, diving deep into the howling ocean of life, deeper than anyone. While you were admiring the surface, I saw the shipwrecks, the drowned bodies, the monsters of the deep
Alfred De MussetRead
My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them.
Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleyRead
Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn't.
A. A. MilneRead
So you find yourself surrounded by death and horror in the world, and you escape it into lust. But lust has no duration; it leaves you again in the desert.
Hermann HesseRead