T. S. Eliot Quotes
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Every experience is a paradox in that it means to be absolute, and yet is relative; in that it somehow always goes beyond itself and yet never escapes itself.
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The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.
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It is not the 'greatness,' the intensity, of the emotions, the components, but the intensity of the artistic process, the pressure, so to speak, under which the fusion takes place, that counts.
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I learn a great deal by merely observing you, and letting you talk as long as you please, and taking note of what you do not say.
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It is only in the world of objects that we have time and space and selves.
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I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope, For hope would be hope for the wrong thing.
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Writing every day is a way of keeping the engine running, and then something good may come out of it.
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Turning Wearily, as one would turn to nod goodbye to Rochefoucauld, If the street were time and he as the end of the street.
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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. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.
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so the countess passed on until she came through the little park, where Niobe presented her with a cabinet, and so departed.
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I shall not want Honor in Heaven For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney And have talk with Coriolanus And other heroes of that kidney.
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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.
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Grishkin is nice: herRussian eye is underlined for emphasis;Uncorseted, her friendly bustGives promise of pneumatic bliss.
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O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
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Ash on an old man's sleeve / Is all the ash the burnt roses leave, / Dust in the air suspended / Marks the place where a story ended.
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Redeem The time. Redeem The unread vision in the higher dream While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.
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We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion.
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Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
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If time and space, as sages say, Are things which cannot be, The sun which does not feel decay No greater is than we. So why, Love, should we ever pray To live a century? The butterfly that lives a day Has lived eternity.
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When a great poet has lived, certain things have been done once for all, and cannot be achieved again.
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We can at least try to understand our own motives, passions, and prejudices, so as to be conscious of what we are doing when we apeal to those of others. This is very difficult, because our own prejudice and emotional bias always seems to us so rational.
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If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
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Those who talk of the bible as a monument of English prose are merely admiring it as a monument over the grave of Christianity.
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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.