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T. S. Eliot Quotes - Page 17

All Quotes Adventure Age Aging Ambition Appreciation Art Atheism Attitude Awareness Birth Children Choices Christianity Church Coffee Communication Confusion Country Creation Criticism Culture Dance Dancing Darkness Death Desire Destiny Discipline Dying Evil Experience Faith Fear Feelings Fighting Food Funny Genius Giving Graduation Greatness Heart History Home Hope House Humanity Humility Ignorance Imagination Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Journey Judging Justice Knowledge Labor Language Laughter Life Literature Loneliness Love Lying Meditation Memories Morning Motivational Mountain Music New Beginnings Pain Passion Past Peace Personality Philosophy Poetry Progress Purpose Rain Reading Reality Religion Risk Running Silence Simplicity Singing Soul Spring Struggle Success Suffering Talent Tea Time Tradition Understanding Vision Waiting War Winter Work Writing

Quick now, here, now, always- A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned

Quick now, here, now, always- A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.

Fire, Flames, Rose

Four Quartets "Little Gidding" pt. 5 (1942)

Till Human voices wake us, and we drown.

Voice, Poetry, Humans

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" l. 129 (1917)

Trying to use words, and every attempt Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure Because one has only learnt to get the better of words For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate With shabby equipment always deteriorating In the general mess of imprecision of feeling.

New Beginnings, Feelings, Trying

East Coker (1940) pt. 5

No scheme for a change of society can be made to appear immediately palatable, except by falsehood, until society has become so desperate that it will accept any change.

Class, Desperate, Accepting

T. S. Eliot (2014). “The Idea of a Christian Society”, p.29, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

A wrong attitude towards nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude towards God, and that the consequence is an inevitable doom. For a long enough time we have believed in nothing but the values arising in a mechanized, commercialized, urbanized way of life: it would be as well for us to face the permanent conditions upon which God allows us to live upon this planet.

Attitude, Long, Environmental

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

Death, Skulls, Skins

"Whispers of Immortality" l. 1 (1919)

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices in the lost lilac and the lost sea voices and the weak spirit quickens to rebel for the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell quickens to recover.

Heart, Sea, Voice

"Ash-Wednesday" l. 195 (1930)

We took up our positions, in obedience to instructions.

War, Obedience, Instruction

T.S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume II: Practical Cats and Further Verses”, p.551, Faber & Faber

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.

Faith, Philosophy, Discipline

Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs, rising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys, advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm, retreating to the corner of arm and knee, eager to be reassured, taking pleasure in the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree.

Christmas, Children, Moving

T.S. Eliot (2009). “Collected Poems 1909-1962”, p.95, Faber & Faber

Lady of silences Calm and distressed Torn and most whole Rose of memory Rose of forgetfulness Exhausted and life-giving Worried reposeful The single Rose Is now the Garden Where all loves end Terminate torment Of love unsatisfied The greater torment Of love satisfied End of the endless Journey to no end Conclusion of all that Is inconclusible Speech without word and Word of no speech Grace to the Mother For the Garden Where all love ends.

Life, Mother, Memories

T. S. Eliot (2014). “Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950”, p.71, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

There is no escape from metre; there is only mastery.

Mastery

For he will do As he do do And there's no doing anything about it!

T.S. Eliot (2011). “The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot”, p.195, Faber & Faber

When a Cat adopts you, and I am not superstitious at all I don't mean only Black cats there is nothing to be done about it except to put up with it and wait until the wind changes.

Cat, Wind, Pet

"The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume II: Practical Cats and Further Verses".

An editor should tell the author his writing is better than it is. Not a lot better, a little better.

Writing, Editing, Editors

The soul is so far from being a monad that we have not only to interpret other souls to ourself but to interpret ourself to ourself.

Soul

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Inspirational, Fear, Dust

The Waste Land l. 25 (1922)

That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.

T.S. Eliot (2010). “The Waste Land and Other Poems”, p.9, Faber & Faber

Before a cat will condescend to treat you as a trusted friend, some little token of esteem is needed, like a dish of cream.

Cat, Animal, Humanity

T.S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume II: Practical Cats and Further Verses”, p.33, Faber & Faber

From a purely external point of view there is no will; and to find will in any phenomenon requires a certain empathy; we observe aman's actions and place ourselves partly but not wholly in his position; or we act, and place ourselves partly in the position of an outsider.

Views, Empathy, Outsiders

One starts an action simply because one must do something.

Action, Industry

T. S. Eliot (2014). “The Complete Plays of T. S. Eliot”, p.324, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance

Inspirational, Life, Dancing

T.S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.181, Faber & Faber

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly But merely vans to beat the air The air which is now thoroughly small and dry Smaller and dryer than the will Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still

Air, Wings, Dry

"Ash-Wednesday" l. 34 (1930)

In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo.

Women, Talking, Culture

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" l. 13 (1917)

And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.

Coffee, Hours, Sunlight

T. S. Eliot (2014). “The Waste Land and Other Poems”, p.35, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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