The Strength of the Sensitive: E.M. Forster on the Personal and Political Power of Empaths and the Relationship Between Creativity and Democracy

“I believe in… an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet.”

“In time of the crises of the spirit, we are aware of all our need, our need for each other and our need for our selves,” the poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote in her exquisite statement of belief, having lived through two World Wars and stood with the anarchists of the Spanish...