Quotes by
T. S. Eliot |
1888-1965 , British poet, Nobel 1948
American-British essayist, playwright, literary and social critic, and one of the twentieth century's major poets. He became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39, renouncing his American citizenship.Eliot attracted widespread attention for his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915). It was followed by some of the best-known poems in English, including The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Four Quartets (1943).
He was also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.
| 51 quotes | 4,310 visits |
Quotations
| • | We don't actually fear death, we fear that no one will notice our absence, that we will disappear without a trace. 25 |
| • | I will show you fear in a handful of dust. 7 |
| • | If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it offers you. 7 |
| • | Turn things you've always wanted to do, into things you've done. 7 |
| • | It's not wise to violate the rules until you know how to observe them. 6 |
| • | You are the music while the music lasts. 6 |
| • | Every moment is a fresh beginning. 5 |
| • | To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life. 5 |
| • | Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair. 5 |
| • | Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. 4 |
| • | Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity. 4 |
| • | What is true, is true only for one time and only for one place. 4 |
| • | April is the cruellest month. 3 |
| • | We must always take risks. That is our destiny. 3 |
| • | Humankind cannot bear very much reality. 3 |
| • | What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. 3 |
| • | Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers. 3 |
| • | The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink. 3 |
| • | Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third. 3 |
| • | Poetry is not an assertion of truth, but the making of that truth more fully real to us. 3 |
| • | In the mountains, there you feel free. 3 |
| • | Everyone gets the experience. Some get the lesson. 3 |
| • | Playwriting gets into your blood and you can't stop it. At least not until the producers or the public tell you to. 3 |
| • | The definition of hell is a place where nothing connects with nothing. 3 |
| • | Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. 2 |
| • | I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. 2 |
| • | Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. 2 |
| • | People to whom nothing has ever happened cannot understand the unimportance of events. 2 |
| • | Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. 2 |
| • | Men live by forgetting and woman live on memories. 2 |
| • | Only through time time is conquered. 2 |
| • | Home is where one starts from. 2 |
| • | Art is the escape from personality. 2 |
| • | At the still point, there the dance is. 2 |
| • | It is impossible to design a system so perfect that no one needs to be good. 2 |
| • | Words strain, crack, and sometime break, under the burden. 2 |
| • | The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first. 2 |
Personal Stories
| • | My name is only an anagram of toilets. 3 |
| • | My mind may be American but my heart is British. 2 |
Quotes in Verse
| • | This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. 8 |
| • | There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not. 6 |
| • | Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? 4 |
| • | Your burden is not to clear your conscience But to learn how to bear the burdens on your conscience. 4 |
| • | The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason. 4 |
| • | For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice. 3 |
| • | Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow. 3 |
| • | I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope, For hope would be hope for the wrong thing. 3 |
| • | Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger. Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions. 2 |
| • | Half 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. 2 |
| • | Neither way is better. Both ways are necessary. It is also necessary To make a choice between them. 2 |
| • | There will be time, there will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet. 2 |
