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" The work of art assumes the existence of the perfect spectator, and is indifferent to the fact that no such person exists. "
E. M. Forster
Perfect
Work
Existence
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" If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. "
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" Logic! Good gracious! What rubbish! "
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" The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves. "
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" We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship. "
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" Ideas are fatal to caste. "
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" There is much good luck in the world, but it is luck. We are none of us safe. We are children, playing or quarrelling on the line. "
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" Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man. "
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" One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it. "
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" I'm a holy man minus the holiness. "
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" If there is on earth a house with many mansions, it is the house of words. "
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" Very notable was his distinction between coarseness and vulgarity, coarseness, revealing something; vulgarity, concealing something. "
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" One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life. "
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" At night, when the curtains are drawn and the fire flickers, my books attain a collective dignity. "
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" Two cheers for Democracy; one because it admits variety, and two because it permits criticism. "
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" I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars. "
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" The sadness of the incomplete, the sadness that is often Life, but should never be Art. "
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Art
" The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race. "
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" I never could get on with representative individuals but people who existed on their own account and with whom it might therefore be possible to be friends. "
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" We are all like Scheherazade's husband, in that we want to know what happens next. "
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" One marvels why the middle classes still insist on so much discomfort for their children at such expense to themselves. "
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" Charm, in most men and nearly all women, is a decoration. "
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" But nothing in India is identifiable, the mere asking of a question causes it to disappear or to merge in something else. "
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Question
Disappear
India
" Love is always being given where it is not required. "
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Always
Where
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" Think before you speak is criticism's motto; speak before you think, creation's. "
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" History develops, art stands still. "
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" Most quarrels are inevitable at the time; incredible afterwards. "
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Inevitable
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" Only people who have been allowed to practise freedom can have the grown-up look in their eyes. "
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" I am so used to seeing the sort of play which deals with one man and two women. They do not leave me with the feeling I have made a full theatrical meal they do not give me the experience of the multiplicity of life. "
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