Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.
Human relations are impossible. When they are real they are uncomfortable, and when they are comfortable they are unreal. It was for the journey into solitude that the human soul was created.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Human relationships can be paradoxical, often feeling uncomfortable yet being essential for genuine connection.
This quote by E.M. Forster suggests that human relationships exist in a complex state where true connections can be uncomfortable and challenging, leading to the notion that when relationships feel easy or comfortable, they may lack authenticity. Forster's reflection on solitude indicates that the journey of the soul requires introspection and a deeper understanding of oneself, suggesting that solitude is a vital component of human experience.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the challenges of authentic relationships, this quote can highlight the complexities involved.
More from E. M. Forster
All quotes →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.
Similar quotes
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
A King (as such) is not a great man. He has great power, but it is not his own.
...the life which is best for men, both separately, as individuals, and in the mass, as states, is the life which has virtue sufficiently supported by material resources to facilitate participation in the actions that virtue calls for.
If we are endowed by our Creator with rights, then why shouldn't those be attainable by gays and lesbians?
Romance and novel paint beauty in colors more charming than nature, and describe a happiness that humans never taste. How deceptive and destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss!
God is not troubled by one who is conservative or liberal, and He certainly never inclines His ear toward a donkey or an elephant.