Can what they call civilization be right, if people mayn’t die in the room where they were born?
People never touched one another. The custom had become obsolete, owing to the Machine.
To them Howards End was a house; they could not know that to her it had been a spirit, for which she sought a spiritual heir. And – pushing one step farther in these mists – may they not have decided even better than they supposed? Is it credible that the possessions of the spirit can be bequeathed at all? Has the soul offspring? A wych-elm tree, a vine, a wisp of hay with dew on it – can passion for such things be transmitted where there is no bond of blood?
But they did not chatter much, for the boy, when he liked a person, would as soon sit silent in his company as speak.
You show so very clearly that intelligence and sympathy are superficial – good enough things in their way – they do what they can and would gladly do more; but the real thing is “being there”, and the worst of it is, no two human beings can be in the same place.
No doubt his wife and children were beautiful too, for people usually get what they already possess.
Oh, horrible – worst of all – worse than death, when you have made a little clearing in the wilderness, planted your little garden, let in your sunlight, and then the weeds creep in again!
The aims of battle and the fruits of conquest are never the same;.
Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven.
We are conventional people, and conventions – if you will but see it – are majestic in their way, and will claim us in the end. We do not live for great passions or for great memories, or for anything great.
He supposed her ‘as clever as they make ‘em’, but no more, not realizing that she was penetrating to the depths of his soul, and approving of what she found there.
Petty unselfishness,” she repeated. “I had got an idea that every one here spent their lives in making little sacrifices for objects they didn’t care for, to please people they didn’t love; that they never learnt to be sincere – and, what’s as bad, never learnt how to enjoy themselves.
Beautiful?” said Miss Bartlett, puzzled at the word. “Are not beauty and delicacy the same?
A chance word or a sigh are just as much evidence as a speech or a murder: the life they reveal ceases to be secret and enters the realm of action.
All men are my brothers and as soon as one behaves as such he may see my wife.
The idealism and the brutality that ran through boyhood had joined at last, and twined into love.
I have always been like the Greeks and didn’t know.
She strove in vain against the echoing walls of their civility.
You mustn’t put off what you think right,” said Hamidullah. “That is why India is in such a plight, because we put off things.
She had deemed it unwise to reveal her soul.