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T. S. Eliot Quotes - Page 22

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

Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question

Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question

Balls, Matter, Overwhelming

T.S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.8, Faber & Faber

The Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat: If you offer him pheasant he would rather have grouse. If you put him in a house he would much prefer a flat, If you put him in a flat then he'd rather have a house. If you set him on a mouse then he only wants a rat, If you set him on a rat then he'd rather chase a mouse. Yes the Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat - And there isn't any call for me to shout it: For he will do As he do do And there's no doing anything about it!

Cat, House, Want

T. S. Eliot (2014). “Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats: with illustrations by Rebecca Ashdown”, p.18, Faber & Faber

So first, your memory I'll jog, And say: A CAT IS NOT A DOG

Dog, Memories, Cat

T. S. Eliot (2014). “Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950”, p.178, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

My mind may be American but my heart is British.

Heart, Mind, May

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

Mean, Impossible

T.S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.395, Faber & Faber

And through the spaces of the dark Midnight shakes the memory As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

Memories, Dark, Space

Prufrock (1917) "Rhapsody on a Windy Night"

When the Stranger says: "What is the meaning of this city? Do you huddle close together because you love each other?" What will you answer? "We all dwell together To make money from each other"? or "This is a community"? Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger. Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.

Cities, Community, Soul

"The Rock". Play by T. S. Eliot, 1934.

The name that no human research can discover-- But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess. When you notice a cat in profound meditation, The reason, I tell you, is always the same: His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name: His ineffable effable Effanineffable Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

Cat, Names, Profound

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats "The Naming of Cats" l. 25 (1939)

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.

Climbing, Despair, Fading

T.S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.91, Faber & Faber

What have we given? My friend, blood shaking my heart The awful daring of a moment's surrender Which an age of prudence can never retract By this, and this only, we have existed.

Heart, Blood, Age

The Waste Land l. 404 (1922)

The Civil War is not ended: I question whether any serious civil war ever does end.

Peace, War, Doe

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

Serious, Sawdust, Muttering

T. S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.5, Faber & Faber

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!

Morning, Stars, Twilight

T. S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.175, Faber & Faber

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

Lying, Ambition, Knowledge

"Gerontion" l. 33 (1920)

We do not quite say that the new is more valuable because it fits in; but its fitting in is a test of its value - a test, it is true, which can only be slowly and cautiously applied, for we are none of us infallible judges of conformity.

Judging, Tests, Novelty

T. S. Eliot (1998). “The Sacred Wood and Major Early Essays”, p.29, Courier Corporation

But at my back from time to time I hear The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring. O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter And on her daughter They wash their feet in soda water.

Daughter, Time, Spring

The Waste Land l. 196 (1922)

Turning Wearily, as one would turn to nod goodbye to Rochefoucauld, If the street were time and he as the end of the street.

Goodbye, Time, Ends

T. S. Eliot (2012). “The Waste Land, Prufrock and Other Poems”, p.20, Courier Corporation

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, Venture

Four Quartets "East Coker" pt. 5 (1940)

The end is in the beginning.

Ends

I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids Sprouting despondently at area gates.

Soul, Gates, Housemaids

'Morning at the Window' (1917)

In the end is my beginning.

Ends

They don't understand what it is to be awake, / To be living on several planes at once / Though one cannot speak with several voices at once.

Voice, Speak, Awareness

T. S. Eliot (2014). “The Complete Plays of T. S. Eliot”, p.97, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The hippopotamus's day Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts; God works in a mysterious way- The Church can sleep and feed at once.

Sleep, Night, Church

T.S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.43, Faber & Faber

Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things (Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the usual reign?

Hope, Men, Eagles

T.S. Eliot (2011). “The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot”, p.78, Faber & Faber

Think neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices are fathered by our heroism. Virtues are forced upon us by our impudent crimes. These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.

Fear, Thinking, Wrath

1919 'Gerontion'.

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