'Inexperience,' repeated Margaret, in  serious yet buoyant tones. 'Of course, I have everything to learn -- absolutely everything -- just as much as Helen. Life's very difficult and full of surprises. At all events, I've got as far as that. To be humble and kind, to go straight ahead, to love people rather than pity them, to remember the submerged -- well, one can't do all these things at once, worse luck, because they're so contradictory. It's then that proportion comes in -- to live by proportion. Don't begin with proportion. Only prigs do that. ...

E.M. Forster, "Howards End"