QuoteProject
How can the mind take hold of such a country? Generations of invaders have tried, but they remain in exile. The important towns they build are only retreats, their quarrels the malaise of men who cannot find their way home. India knows of their trouble. She knows of the whole world's trouble, to its uttermost depth. She calls "Come" through her hundred mouths, through objects ridiculous and august. But come to what? She has never defined. She is not a promise, only an appeal.
E. M. Forster
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote reflects on the complexities of identity and belonging, particularly in the context of India as a land of diverse experiences and histories.

E. M. Forster's quote explores the enigmatic nature of India and the difficulty of truly grasping its essence. Despite generations of outsiders attempting to conquer or understand the nation, they remain unable to fully integrate or find a sense of home. India, personified here, possesses an intrinsic understanding of worldly troubles but offers no concrete answers or promises, merely beckoning others to engage with its rich, multifaceted existence. This highlights the idea that belonging and understanding cannot be forced and that true connection requires more than superficial engagement.

Themes

IdentityBelongingUnderstandingIndiaPhilosophy

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about cultural diversity, one might reference this quote to emphasize how identity transcends mere geography.

More from E. M. Forster

Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.
E. M. ForsterRead
A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.
E. M. ForsterRead
One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.
E. M. ForsterRead
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.
E. M. ForsterRead
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.
E. M. ForsterRead
One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested.
E. M. ForsterRead

Similar quotes

One might enumerate the items of high civilization, as it exists in other countries, which are absent from the texture of American life, until it should become a wonder to know what was left.
Henry JamesRead
We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won
Ronald ReaganRead
Tithe in kind where your spirit is fed.
Oprah WinfreyRead
O Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to consider that we not only carry each a future Ghost within him; but are, in very deed, Ghosts!
Thomas CarlyleRead
Whom the gods love dies young.
MenanderRead
Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past, even while we attempt to define it.
Charles Caleb ColtonRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.