Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.
E. M. ForsterRead
Very notable was his distinction between coarseness and vulgarity, coarseness, revealing something; vulgarity, concealing something.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Coarseness exposes the raw truth, while vulgarity hides it behind a façade.
E. M. Forster’s quote highlights an important distinction between coarseness and vulgarity, suggesting that coarseness, while perhaps harsh, reveals genuine aspects of a person or situation. In contrast, vulgarity represents a concealment of the truth or a masking of one's true self, indicating a preference for appearance over authenticity.
Themes
CoarsenessVulgarityTruthAuthenticityRevelation
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about art, one might quote Forster to illustrate the difference between honest expression and pretentiousness.
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.
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
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