Quotation by E.M. Forster

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The Germans are called brutal, the Spanish cruel, the Americans superficial, and so on; but we are perfide Albion, the island of hypocrites, the people who have built up an Empire with a Bible in one hand, a pistol in the other, and financial concessions in both pockets. Is the charge true? I think it is.

E.M. Forster

E.M. (Edward Morgan) Forster (1879–1970), British novelist, essayist. repr. In Abinger Harvest (1936). Notes on the English Character (1920).

Forster defined English hypocrisy as "unconscious deceit" and "muddle-headedness."

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