Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.
E. M. ForsterRead
Think before you speak is criticism's motto; speak before you think, creation's.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the contrast between cautious communication and spontaneous creativity.
E. M. Forster's quote delineates two approaches to communication: one that emphasizes careful consideration and thoughtfulness before speaking, which often serves as a criticism of thoughtless remarks, and another that advocates for spontaneous expression as a means of fostering creativity. The essence lies in understanding that while measured speech has its place in criticism, unrestrained expression fuels innovation and artistry.
In practice
During a workshop on creativity, this quote can be used to encourage participants to express their ideas freely.
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.
I'm practicing the discipline of not having to have the last word.
Don't worry about what you can't control. Our focus and energy needs to be on the things we CAN control. Attitude, effort, focus- these are the things we can control.
One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.
In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.
You must learn to discipline your disappointment.
In the company of friends, writers can discuss their books, economists the state of the economy, lawyers their latest cases, and businessmen their latest acquisitions, but mathematicians cannot discuss their mathematics at all. And the more profound their work, the less understandable it is.
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