“So two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism.”

— 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.”

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”