Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.
E. M. ForsterRead
They cared for no one, they were outside humanity, and death, had it come, would only have continued their pursuit of a retreating horizon.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the detachment from human connection and the relentless pursuit of unattainable goals.
In this quote, E. M. Forster explores the idea of individuals who are so consumed by their ambitions and desires that they become disconnected from humanity itself. The metaphor of a 'retreating horizon' symbolizes goals that are perpetually just out of reach, suggesting that this relentless pursuit leads to a life devoid of meaningful relationships and ultimately makes death an indifferent end rather than a culmination of human experience.
Themes
DetachmentAmbitionHumanityPursuitGoals
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the dangers of ambition, this quote can emphasize the importance of human connections.
More from E. M. Forster
All quotes βA 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
if we have not found the heaven within,we have not found the heaven without
James HiltonRead
Only within yourself exists the other reality for which you long. I can give you nothing that has not already its being within yourself. I can throw open to you no picture gallery but your own soul.
Hermann HesseRead
Desire nothing for yourself, which you do not desire for others.
Baruch SpinozaRead
If you are an Arabic-speaking, Greek-Orthodox going to a French school it makes you deeply sceptical if you have to listen to three different accounts of the Crusades - one from the Muslim side, one from the Greek side and one from the Catholic side.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science.
Albert EinsteinRead
Do we, holding that the gods exist, deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreams and lies, while random careless chance and change alone control the world?
EuripidesRead