T. S. Eliot Quotes
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The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man
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But it seems that something has happened that has never happened before: though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where.
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That is the worst moment, when you feel you have lost / The desires for all that was most desirable, / Before you are contented with what you can desire; / Before you know what is left to be desired; / And you go on wishing that you could desire / What desire has left behind.
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Those who say they give the public what it wants begin by underestimating public taste and end by debauching it.
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When the gods know that a god hath fallen, With this kindly feeling They do encourage him-- Be thou a god again and again.
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The eastern light our spires touch at morning, The light that slants upon our western doors at evening, The twilight over stagnant pools at batflight, Moon light and star light, owl and moth light, Glow-worm glowlight on a grassblade. O Light Invisible, we worship Thee!
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If we are moved by a poem, it has meant something, perhaps something important, to us; if we are not moved, then it is, as poetry, meaningless.
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A philosophy can and must be worked out with the greatest rigour and discipline in the details, but can ultimately be founded on nothing but faith: and this is the reason, I suspect, why the novelties in philosophy are only in elaboration, and never in fundamentals.
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In a mind charged with an eager purpose and an unfinished vindictiveness, there is no room for new feelings.
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The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is incarnation. Here the impossible union of spheres of existence is actual. Here the past and future are conquered and reconciled.
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No place of grace for those who avoid the Face. No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the Voice.
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Cats must have three names-an everyday name, such as Peter; a more particular, dignified name, such as Quaxo, Bombalurina, or Jellylorum; and, thirdly, the name the cat thinks up for himself, his deep and inscrutable singular Name.
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All art emulates the condition of ritual. That is what it comes from and to that it must always return for nourishment.
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The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an "objective correlative"; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula for that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.
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Words move, music moves Only in time; but that which is only living Can only die. Words, after speech, reach Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern, Can words or music reach The stillness.
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I would meet you upon this honestly. I that was near your heart was removed therefrom To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition. I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it Since what is kept must be adulterated? I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch: How should I use them for your closer contact?
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Yeats was the greatest poet of our times . . . certainly the greatest in this language, and so far as I am able to judge, in any language.
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After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions Guides us by vanities.
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Fading, fading: strength beyond hope and despair climbing the third stair. Lord, I am not worthy Lord, I am not worthy but speak the word only.
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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
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Thus with most careful devotion Thus with precise attention To detail, interfering preparation Of that which is already prepared Men lighten the knot of confusion Into perfect misunderstanding, Reflecting a pocket-torch of observation.
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Humility is the most difficult of all virtues to achieve; nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of self.
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the ordinary man's experience is chaotic, irregular, fragmentary. [He] falls in love or reads Spinoza, and these two experiences have nothing to do with each other, or with the noise of the typewriter, or the smell of cooking; in the mind of the poet these experiences are always forming new wholes
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Shall I part my hair behind Do I dare to eat a peach I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.