T. S. Eliot Quotes - Page 16

Quotes about:

• One starts an action simply because one must do something.

  T. S. Eliot

  Action, Industry

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

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

  T. S. Eliot

  Inspirational, Life, Dancing

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

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• If you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest cup of scorn and hatred that a fellow human being can pour out for you, let a young mother hear you call dear baby 'it.'

  T. S. Eliot

  Funny, Mom, Mother

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• I think we are in rats’ alley Where the dead men lost their bones.

  T. S. Eliot

  Men, Thinking, Rats

  Waste Land (1922) pt. 2

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• The bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious.

  T. S. Eliot

  Poetry, Crafts, Conscious

  T.S. Eliot (2010). “The Waste Land and Other Poems”, p.92, Broadview Press

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• At the violet hour, when the eyes and back Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a taxi throbbing waiting I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives.

  T. S. Eliot

  Life, Eye, Two

  'The Waste Land' (1922) pt. 3

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• Dayodhuam: I have heard the key Turn in the door once and turn once only We think of the key, each in his prison Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison.

  T. S. Eliot

  Thinking, Keys, Doors

  The Waste Land l. 412 (1922)

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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.

  T. S. Eliot

  Past, Hints, Half

  1941 Four Quartets,'The Dry Salvages', pt.5.

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• Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

  T. S. Eliot

  Hair, Flannels, Peaches

  "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" l. 122 (1917)

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• And indeed there will be time to wonder, 'Do I dare?', and 'Do I dare?

  T. S. Eliot

  Wonder, Dare

  T. S. Eliot (2014). “The Waste Land and Other Poems”, p.10, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

  T. S. Eliot

  Art, Writing, Reading Poetry

  The Sacred Wood "Philip Massinger" (1920)

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• The Rum Turn Tugger is a terrible bore: When you let him in, then he wants to be out; He's always on the wrong side of every door, And as soon as he's at home, then he'd like to get about.

  T. S. Eliot

  Home, Doors, Want

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

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• I journeyed to London, to the timekept City, Where the River flows, with foreign flotations. There I was told: we have too many churches, And too few chop-houses.

  T. S. Eliot

  Cities, Rivers, House

  T.S. Eliot (2011). “The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot”, p.129, Faber & Faber

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• So far as we are human, what we do must be either evil or good: so far as we do evil or good, we are human: and it is better, in a paradoxical way, to do evil than to do nothing: at least we exist.

  T. S. Eliot

  Evil, Wickedness, Way

  T.S. Eliot (2016). “The Letters of T. S. Eliot Volume 6: 1932–1933”, p.225, Faber & Faber

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• And all shall be well and/ All manner of thing shall be well/ By the purification of the motive/ In the ground of our beseeching

  T. S. Eliot

  Purification, Motive, Quartets

  T. S. Eliot (2014). “Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950”, p.152, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There is no absolute point of view from which real and ideal can be finally separated and labelled.

  T. S. Eliot

  Real, Views, Point Of View

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• And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor - And this, and so much more? -

  T. S. Eliot

  Sunset, Skirts, Trails

  T. S. Eliot (2012). “The Waste Land, Prufrock and Other Poems”, p.10, Courier Corporation

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• And indeed there will be time To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair.

  T. S. Eliot

  Time, Hair, Wonder

  T.S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.6, Faber & Faber

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• That was my way of putting it-not very satisfactory: A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion, Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle With words and meanings.

  T. S. Eliot

  Fashion, Leaving, Way

  Four Quartets "East Coker" pt. 2 (1940)

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• Because I know that time is always time And place is always and only place.

  T. S. Eliot

  Knows

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

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• The immature poet imitates, the mature poet plagiarizes.

  T. S. Eliot

  Immature, Mature, Poet

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• The nightingales are singing near The Convent of the Sacred Heart, And sang within the bloody wood When Agamemnon cried aloud, And let their liquid siftings fall To stain the stiff dishonored shroud.

  T. S. Eliot

  Fall, Heart, Singing

  "Sweeney Among the Nightingales" l. 35 (1919)

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• No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool.

  T. S. Eliot

  Two, Doubt, Progress

  Prufrock (1917) "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

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• Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet--and here's no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid.

  T. S. Eliot

  Greatness, Ice, Cake

  "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" l. 84 (1917)

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• Ambition fortifies the will of man to become ruler over other men: it operates with deception, cajolery, and violence, it is the action of impurity upon impurity.

  T. S. Eliot

  Ambition, Men, Deception

  T. S. Eliot (2014). “Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950”, p.208, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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