E. M. Forster Quotes

Theories pass. The frog remains.

There is nothing so stable as change.

Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed.

History is like a constantly changing tree.

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

I don't change. The things around me change.

Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.

Writing about the future and the past is less a way of dramatizing change than of showing, by way of contrast, what abides.

Strong characters are brought out by change of situation, and gentle ones by permanence.

Museums are tombs, and it looks like everything is turning into a museum.

History has spurts and then is steady, and then maybe even backing up a step, and then forward again.

Nothing changes like changes, because nothing changes but the changes.

History may be divided into three movements: what moves rapidly, what moves slowly and what appears not to move at all.

We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past; and we must respect the past, remembering that it was once all that was humanly possible.

We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.

He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.

Reform means difficulties. History moves often by leaps, then it moves slowly, because the resistance is organizing itself.

It is for all these buildings, therefore, of all times and styles, that we plead, and call upon those who have to deal with them to put Protection in the place of Restoration, to stave off decay by daily care, to prop a perilous wall or mend a leaky roof by such means as are obviously meant for support or covering, and show no pretence of other art, and otherwise to resist all tampering with either the fabric or ornament of the building as it stands; if it has become inconvenient for its present use, to raise another building rather than alter or enlarge the old one; in fine to treat our ancient buildings as monuments of a bygone art, created by bygone manners, that modern art cannot meddle with without destroying.

It is well that the beaten ways of the world get trodden into mud : we are thus forced to seek new paths and pick out new lines of life.

… history itself appears to be abandoning the eruption of events in favor of stable structures

History is in motion, and those moving with it are so caught up that they cannot always see its broad outlines

To picture world history as advancing smoothly and steadily without sometimes taking gigantic strides backward is undialectical, unscientific and theoretically wrong

Change is the raw material of history.

You can embrace nostalgia and history and tradition at the same time - it has to progress or it can't survive.

Gardening is inevitably a process of constant, remorseless change. It is the constancy of that process that is so comforting, not any fixed moment.