Famous Ts (Thomas Stearns) Eliot Quotations

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"For every life and every act consequence of good and evil can be shown and as in time results of many deeds are blended so good and evil in the end become confounded."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"Art never improves, but the material of art is never quite the same."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs, rising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys, advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm, retreating to the corner of arm and knee, eager to be reassured, taking pleasure in the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"We do not quite say that the new is more valuable because it fits in; but its fitting in is a test of its value -- a test, it is true, which can only be slowly and cautiously applied, for we are none of us infallible judges of conformity."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head grown slightly bald brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet--and here's no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"Liberty is a different kind of pain from prison."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be: am an attendant lord, one that will do to swell a progress, start a scene or two, advise the prince."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"In the small circle of pain within the skull You still shall tramp and tread one endless round Of thought, to justify your action to yourselves, Weaving a fiction which unravels as you weave, Pacing forever in the hell of make-believe Which never is belief: this is your fate on earth And we must think no further of you."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"People exercise an unconscious selection in being influenced."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"We are not here to triumph by fighting, by strata gem, or by resistance, not to fight with beasts as men. We have fought the beast and have conquered. We have only to conquer now, by suffering. This is the easier victory."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"Only by acceptance of the past, can you alter it."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"Each venture is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate with shabby equipment always deteriorating in the general mess of imprecision of feeling."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"It seems just possible that a poem might happen to a very young man: but a poem is not poetry --That is a life."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"We must believe that emotion recollected in tranquillity is an inexact formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor without distortion of meaning, tranquillity. It is a concentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration of a very great number of experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to be experiences at all; it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation. These experiences are not recollected and they finally unite in an atmosphere which is tranquil only in that it is a passive attending upon the event."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"When a poet's mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experiences."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"What a poem means is as much what it means to others as what it means to the author; and indeed, in the course of time a poet may become merely reader in respect to his own works, forgetting his original meaning."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind Cannot bear very much reality. Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labor."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"A tradition without intelligence is not worth having."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"War is not a life: it is a situation, one which may neither be ignored nor accepted."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
"For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice."
by TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot


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