T.S. Eliot Quotes

Only through time time is conquered

Each way means loneliness -- and communion.

It is a test (a positive test, I do not assert that it is always valid negatively), that genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

Webster was much possessed by death And saw the skull beneath the skin.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is.

Tennyson and Browning are poets, and they think; but they do not feel their thought as immediately as the odour of a rose. A thought to Donne was an experience; it modified his sensibility.

There will be time to murder and create.

When the gods know that a god hath fallen, With this kindly feeling They do encourage him-- Be thou a god again and again.

His laughter tinkled among the teacups.

Uncorseted, her friendly bust Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.

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.

And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

A book is not harmless merely because no one is consciously offended by it.

Sister, mother And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea, Suffer me not to be separated And let my cry come unto Thee.

To men of a certain type The suspicion that they are incapable of loving Is as disturbing to their self-esteem As, in cruder men, the fear of impotence.

In spite of all the dishonour, the broken standards, the broken lives, The broken faith in one place or another, There was something left that was more than the tales Of old men on winter evenings.

We fight to keep something alive rather than in the expectation that anything will triumph.

The usual dog about the town is much inclined to play the clown.

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.

The chief danger about Paris is that it is such a strong stimulant.

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions Guides us by vanities.

Each venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate With shabby equipment always deteriorating In the general mess of imprecision of feeling.

I say to you: Make perfect your will. / I say: take no thought of the harvest, / But only of proper sowing.

Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'/Let us go and make our visit.

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god-sullen, untamed and intractable.

I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

I can connect Nothing with nothing

It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted.

Poetry and art and knowledge are sacred and pure.

Destiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis personae folded in her hand.

Personal answers to ultimate questions. That is what we seek.

The refuge from pessimism is the good men and women at any time existing in the world, -they keep faith and happiness alive.

A middle class is so important to a society that its value cannot be overestimated.

In order to have a lasting career you'll need to spend time performing live to build your own audience, as it's not all about social media. Word of mouth still rules.

If you watch a film without music, there's nothing that you can connect with.

I take every day as it comes and if I have to be somewhere, I'll be there.

My emotions, instincts, and interests are all with nature.

Translation is not appropriation, as is sometimes claimed; it is a form of listening that then changes how you speak.

Appearances have very little to do with happiness.

I have nothing to tell except travellers' stories, which are always tiresome, like the description of a play which was very exciting to those who saw it.

It is a common sentence that knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of ignorance? Knowledge slowly builds up what ignorance in an hour pulls down.

What are a handful of reasonable men against a crowd with stones in their hands?

When God makes His presence felt through us, we are like the burning bush: Moses never took any heed what sort of bush it was—he only saw the brightness of the Lord.

The best travel is that which one can take by one's own fireside. In memory or imagination.

Character is not cut in marble - it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.

Our thoughts are often worse than we are.

Women should be protected from anyone's exercise of unrighteous power... but then, so should every other living creature.

The years seem to rush by now, and I think of death as a fast approaching end of a journey-double and treble reason for loving as well as working while it is day.

I am not resigned: I am not sure life is long enough to learn that lesson.