Famous Ts 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
"Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity"
by T.S. Eliot
"Business today consists in persuading crowds"
by T.S. Eliot
"For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business"
by T.S. Eliot
"Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood"
by T.S. Eliot
"If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are? by"
by T.S. Eliot
"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal."
by T.S. Eliot
"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal"
by T.S. Eliot
"In the vain laughter of folly, wisdom hears half its applause"
by T.S. Eliot
"It's strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words"
by T.S. Eliot
"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go"
by T.S. Eliot
"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go."
by T.S. Eliot
"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."
by T.S. Eliot
"Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves"
by T.S. Eliot
"Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers"
by T.S. Eliot
"Television is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome."
by T.S. Eliot
"Television is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome"
by T.S. Eliot
"The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason"
by T.S. Eliot
"We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion"
by T.S. Eliot
"When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good"
by T.S. 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
"In a minute there is time for decisons and revisions which a minute will reverse."
by T.S. 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 are the roots that clutch, what branches grow, Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust."
by T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
"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
"In my beginning is my end."
by T.S. Eliot
"I do not approve the extermination of the enemy; the policy of exterminating or, as it is barbarously said, liquidating enemies, is one of the most alarming developments of modern war and peace, from the point of view of those who desire the survival"
by T.S. Eliot
"Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them."
by T.S. Eliot
"Footfalls echo in the memory down the passage which we did not take towards the door we never opened into the rose-garden."
by T.S. Eliot
"Donne, I suppose, was such another / Who found no substitute for sense. / To seize and clutch and penetrate; / Expert beyond experience."
by T.S. Eliot
"And indeed there will be time/ To wonder, Do I dare? and, Do I dare?/ Time to turn back and descend the stair,/ With a bald spot in the middle of my hair. . ./ Do I dare/ Disturb the universe?"
by T.S. Eliot
"An election is coming. Universal peace is declared and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry."
by T.S. Eliot
"Where is the Life we have lost in living?"
by T.S. Eliot
"The dream crossed twilight between birth and dying."
by T.S. Eliot
"The clock has stopped in the dark."
by T.S. Eliot
"Tenants of the house, / Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season."
by T.S. Eliot
"People to whom nothing has ever happened cannot understand the unimportance of events."
by T.S. Eliot
"Our high respect for a well read person is praise enough for literature."
by T.S. Eliot
"No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; / Am an attendant lord."
by T.S. Eliot
"Let's not be narrow, nasty, and negative."
by T.S. 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
"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can possibly go."
by TS 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
"'You, madam, are the eternal humorist, The eternal enemy of the absolute, Giving our vagrant moods the slightest twist!...'"
by T.S. Eliot
"A rat crept softly through the vegetation Dragging its slimy belly on the bank..."
by T.S. Eliot
"A toothache, or a violent passion, is not necessarily diminished by our knowledge of its causes, its character, its importance or insignifican..."
by T.S. Eliot
"Art never improves, but ... the material of art is never quite the same."
by T.S. Eliot
"Birth, and copulation, and death. That's all the facts when you come to brass tacks:..."
by T.S. Eliot
"Death or life or life or death Death is life and life is death..."
by T.S. Eliot
"Eyes that last I saw in tears Through division..."
by T.S. Eliot
"Eyes I shall not see unless At the door of death's other kingdom..."
by T.S. Eliot
"Here, across death's other river The Tartar horsemen shake their spears."
by T.S. Eliot
"I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face, It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said...."
by T.S. Eliot
"I do not find The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring. Thank you."
by T.S. Eliot
"I say to you: Make perfect your will. I say: take no thought of the harvest, But only of proper sowing."
by T.S. Eliot
"In the mountains, there you feel free."
by T.S. Eliot
"In that open field If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,..."
by T.S. Eliot
"In our rhythm of earthly life we tire of light. We are glad when the day ends, when the play ends; and ecstasy is too much pain."
by T.S. Eliot
"Let those who go home tell the same story of you: Of action with a common purpose, action..."
by T.S. Eliot
"O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark, The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,..."
by T.S. Eliot
"Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other Who think the same thoughts without need of speech"
by T.S. Eliot
"Only by the form, the pattern, Can words or music reach..."
by T.S. Eliot
"Pollicle dogs and cats all must Jellicle cats and dogs all must..."
by T.S. Eliot
"Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell..."
by T.S. Eliot
"SWEENEY: Nothing to eat but the fruit as it grows...."
by T.S. Eliot
"The breathing in unison ..."
by T.S. Eliot
"The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying."
by T.S. Eliot
"The time of the seasons and the constellations The time of milking and the time of harvest..."
by T.S. Eliot
"The soul of Man must quicken to creation. Out of the formless stone, when the artist united himself with stone,..."
by T.S. Eliot
"The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet— He was aware that this sort of thing had occurred before."
by T.S. Eliot
"The wind sprang up at four o'clock The wind sprang up and broke the bells Swinging between life and death"
by T.S. Eliot
"This form, this face, this life Living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me..."
by T.S. Eliot
"These fragments I have shored against my ruins Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe...."
by T.S. Eliot
"Through the dark cold and the empty desolation, The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters..."
by T.S. Eliot
"Those are pearls that were his eyes. 'Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?'..."
by T.S. Eliot
"We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,..."
by T.S. Eliot
"We die with the dying: See, they depart, and we go with them...."
by T.S. Eliot
"Unreal city, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,..."
by T.S. Eliot
"Webster was much possessed by death And saw the skull beneath the skin;..."
by T.S. Eliot
"were we led all that way for Birth or Death?"
by T.S. Eliot
"Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers."
by T.S. Eliot


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