“One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.”

— E. M. Forster, What I Believe, 1938

About E. M. Forster

1879 – 1970

English novelist, author of "A Room with a View" and "A Passage to India".

“Either life entails courage, or it ceases to be life.”

“Happiness in the ordinary sense is not what one needs in life, though one is right to aim at it.”

“Poetry is a spirit; and they that would worship it must worship in spirit and in truth.”

“The wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can.”

“In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside.”

“The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life.”

“So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage.”