Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.
E. M. ForsterRead
Chess is a forcing house where the fruits of character can ripen more fully than in life
Interpretation
Chess reveals and cultivates one's character through its challenges.
E. M. Forster's quote suggests that the game of chess serves as a microcosm for life, where individuals are forced to confront their true character through strategic thinking and decision-making. The constraints and challenges of chess provide a unique environment that facilitates personal growth and self-discovery, often magnifying the qualities of perseverance, patience, and integrity that are essential in broader life experiences.
In practice
Discussing the importance of character development at a motivational seminar.
Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.
A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.
One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.
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.
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.
One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested.
There is no subjection so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom.
You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker.
I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.
Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.
Guilt -- if there was any guilt -- spread out and diffused itself over everybody and everything. . . . Perhaps at some point in time, at some spot in the world, a moment of responsibility existed.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.