Categories: Quotes

The English character is incomplete in a way that is particularly annoying to the foreign observer

But the English character is incomplete in a way that is particularly annoying to the foreign observer. It has a bad surface—self complacent, unsympathetic, and reserved. There is plenty of emotion further down, but it never gets used. There is plenty of brain power, but it is more often used to confirm prejudices than to dispel them. With such an equipment the Englishman cannot be popular. Only I would repeat: there is little vice in him and no real coldness. It is the machinery that is wrong.

E. M. Forster, Notes on the English Character

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