Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.
E. M. ForsterRead
When that strange race nears the dust and is condemned as untouchable, then nature remembers the physical perfection that she accomplished elsewhere, and throws out a god-not many, but one here and there, to prove to society how little its categories impress her.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that societal labels are insignificant to nature, which can produce exceptional individuals regardless of human classifications.
E. M. Forster's quote reflects on the idea that societal constructs and categories, such as those that lead to discrimination and judgment, are trivial in the larger scheme of nature. It posits that nature can remember its achievements and will occasionally produce extraordinary individuals to challenge these narrow societal views, illustrating that true worth is not defined by arbitrary human classifications.
Themes
SocietyNaturePerfectionIndividualityCategories
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech advocating for diversity, one could remind the audience that nature challenges societal labels by producing unique individuals.
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
Prejudice of any kind implies that you are identified with the thinking mind. It means you don't see the other human being anymore, but only your own concept of that human being. To reduce the aliveness of another human being to a concept is already a form of violence.
Eckhart TolleRead
The material body has a practical reality that is accessible. It is here and now, and we can do something with it. However, we must not forget that the innermost part of our being is also trying to help us. It wants to come out to the surface and express itself.
B.K.S. IyengarRead
Death like a lover, caressing him, promising him peace, running its fingers through his hair, its tongue in his ear. She put her own two fingers in her mouth. Im so sorry. And pulled the trigger
Janet FitchRead
What is life? A madness. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story. And the greatest good is little enough: for all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams.
Pedro Calderon De La BarcaRead
The land was ours before we were the land's. She was our land more than a hundred years Before we were her people.
Robert FrostRead
We always look at the 'Fortune 500,' and we say, men in power, but we don't look at the glass cellar as opposed to the glass ceiling and say, men also are the homeless, men are also the ones that are the garbage collectors. Men are also the ones dying in construction sites that aren't properly supervised for safety hazards.
Warren FarrellRead