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 | 5,492 visits |
Quotations
| • | We don't actually fear death, we fear that no one will notice our absence, that we will disappear without a trace. 27 |
| • | It's not wise to violate the rules until you know how to observe them. 9 |
| • | Every moment is a fresh beginning. 9 |
| • | Turn things you've always wanted to do, into things you've done. 8 |
| • | If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it offers you. 8 |
| • | I will show you fear in a handful of dust. 8 |
| • | You are the music while the music lasts. 7 |
| • | Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair. 6 |
| • | To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life. 6 |
| • | Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. 6 |
| • | What is true, is true only for one time and only for one place. 5 |
| • | Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity. 5 |
| • | Humankind cannot bear very much reality. 5 |
| • | The definition of hell is a place where nothing connects with nothing. 4 |
| • | Playwriting gets into your blood and you can't stop it. At least not until the producers or the public tell you to. 4 |
| • | Everyone gets the experience. Some get the lesson. 4 |
| • | In the mountains, there you feel free. 4 |
| • | Poetry is not an assertion of truth, but the making of that truth more fully real to us. 4 |
| • | Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third. 4 |
| • | The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink. 4 |
| • | Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers. 4 |
| • | 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. 4 |
| • | We must always take risks. That is our destiny. 4 |
| • | April is the cruellest month. 4 |
| • | The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first. 3 |
| • | Words strain, crack, and sometime break, under the burden. 3 |
| • | It is impossible to design a system so perfect that no one needs to be good. 3 |
| • | At the still point, there the dance is. 3 |
| • | Art is the escape from personality. 3 |
| • | Home is where one starts from. 3 |
| • | Only through time time is conquered. 3 |
| • | Men live by forgetting and woman live on memories. 3 |
| • | 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. 3 |
| • | People to whom nothing has ever happened cannot understand the unimportance of events. 3 |
| • | Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. 3 |
| • | I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. 3 |
| • | Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. 3 |
Personal Stories
| • | My name is only an anagram of toilets. 4 |
| • | My mind may be American but my heart is British. 3 |
Quotes in Verse
| • | This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. 10 |
| • | There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not. 8 |
| • | The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason. 6 |
| • | Your burden is not to clear your conscience But to learn how to bear the burdens on your conscience. 6 |
| • | There will be time, there will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet. 5 |
| • | Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow. 5 |
| • | Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? 5 |
| • | I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope, For hope would be hope for the wrong thing. 4 |
| • | For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice. 4 |
| • | 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. 4 |
| • | Neither way is better. Both ways are necessary. It is also necessary To make a choice between them. 3 |
| • | Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger. Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions. 3 |
