"The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal"
About this Quote
Respect, for Forster, isn’t earned by swagger or certainty; it’s earned by a particular kind of composure under the shadow of time. “Behave as if they were immortal” sounds at first like a compliment to ego, but the subtext cuts the other way. It’s a prescription for moral stamina: act with the patience and seriousness you’d reserve for a life that won’t be conveniently edited by death. Immortality here isn’t metaphysics, it’s a stance - the refusal to use finitude as an excuse for cheapness, haste, or performative cynicism.
The second clause sharpens the blade. “As if society was eternal” pushes against the temptation to treat the social order as a temporary stage where anything goes because “it’s all falling apart anyway.” Forster lived through the collapse of Victorian certainties, the First World War, and the gathering storms that would remake Europe. In that context, the line reads like a rebuke to fashionable despair and to the kind of cleverness that mistakes disillusionment for wisdom.
What makes the sentence work is its double “as if.” Forster isn’t naïve about mortality or history; he’s advocating a chosen fiction that produces real-world decency. Behave as though your actions will be judged over centuries, and as though your obligations to others will still matter tomorrow. It’s an ethic designed to outlast moods, regimes, and excuses - a quiet, liberal defiance against the seductions of both apocalypse and indulgence.
The second clause sharpens the blade. “As if society was eternal” pushes against the temptation to treat the social order as a temporary stage where anything goes because “it’s all falling apart anyway.” Forster lived through the collapse of Victorian certainties, the First World War, and the gathering storms that would remake Europe. In that context, the line reads like a rebuke to fashionable despair and to the kind of cleverness that mistakes disillusionment for wisdom.
What makes the sentence work is its double “as if.” Forster isn’t naïve about mortality or history; he’s advocating a chosen fiction that produces real-world decency. Behave as though your actions will be judged over centuries, and as though your obligations to others will still matter tomorrow. It’s an ethic designed to outlast moods, regimes, and excuses - a quiet, liberal defiance against the seductions of both apocalypse and indulgence.
Quote Details
| Topic | Respect |
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