Famous Quotes by T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot

  • I shall not want Honour in Heaven
    For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney
    And have talk with... More
  • I shall not want Society in Heaven,
    Lucretia Borgia shall be my Bride;
    Her anecdotes... More
  • The red-eyed scavengers are creeping
    From Kentish Town and Golder’s Green.
    Where are... More
  • Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
    Who think the same thoughts without need of speech More
  • The breathing in unison ... More
  • No peevish winter wind shall chill
    No sullen tropic sun shall wither
    The roses in the... More
  • Issues from the hand of time the simple soul
    Irresolute and selfish, misshapen,... More
  • Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs,
    Rising or falling, grasping at kisses and... More
  • The heavy burden of the growing soul
    Perplexes and offends more, day by day;
    Week by... More
  • War is not a life: it is a situation,
    One which may neither be ignored nor accepted. More
  • But the abstract conception
    Of private experience at its greatest intensity
    Becoming... More
  • Our emotions
    Are only “incidents”
    In the effort to keep day and night together. More
  • In the path of an action merely typical
    To create the universal, originate a symbol
    Out... More
  • It seems just possible that a poem might happen
    To a very young man: but a poem is not... More
  • Where is the point at which the merely individual
    Explosion breaks...? More
  • The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying. More
  • Redeem
    The time. Redeem.
    The unread vision in the higher dream
    While jewelled... More
  • Because I do not hope to turn again
    Because I do not hope
    Because I do not hope to turn More
  • Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
    About the center of the silent Word. More
  • And the bones sang chirping
    With the burden of the grasshopper, More
  • Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
    Upon which to rejoice More
  • And pray to God to have mercy upon us
    And I pray that I may forget
    These matters that... More
  • Terminate torment
    Of love unsatisfied
    The greater torment
    Of love satisfied More
  • Because I do not hope to know again
    The infirm glory of the positive hour More
  • Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
    There is no life in them. As I am... More
  • Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
    Lilac and brown hair; More
  • (Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?) More
  • No place of grace for those who avoid the face
    No time to rejoice for those who walk among... More
  • Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
    In the cool of the day, having fed to... More
  • Lady of silences
    Calm and distressed
    Torn and most whole More
  • Who shall remember my house, where shall live my children’s
    children
    When the time of... More
  • Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls and
    The winter sun creeps by the snow... More
  • I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me,
    I am dying in my own death and... More
  • The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet—
    He was aware that this sort of... More
  • And the footman sat upon the dining-table
    Holding the second housemaid on his knees
    Who... More
  • So far as we are human, what we do must be either evil or good: so far as we do evil or good, we... More
  • A meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic hand ... More
  • A lustreless protrusive eye
    Stares from the protozoic slime
    At a perspective of... More
  • Who clipped the lion’s wings
    And flea’d his rump and pared his claws?
    Thought... More
  • Human kind
    Cannot bear very much reality. More
  • Footfalls echo in the memory
    Down the passage which we did not take
    Towards the door we... More
  • Time past and time future
    What might have been and what has been
    Point to one end, which... More
  • The Word in the desert
    Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
    The crying shadow in the... More
  • Except for the point, the still point,
    There would be no dance, and there is only the dance. More
  • the roses
    Had the look of flowers that are looked at. More
  • Words strain,
    Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
    Under the tension, slip,... More
  • Desiccation of the world of sense,
    Evacuation of the world of fancy,
    Inoperancy of the... More
  • Only by the form, the pattern,
    Can words or music reach
    The stillness, as a Chinese jar... More
  • Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
    Hidden excitedly, containing laughter. More
  • Words move, music moves
    Only in time; but that which is only living
    Can only die. Words,... More
  • Time present and time past
    Are both perhaps present in time future,
    And time future... More
  • human kind
    Cannot bear very much reality.
    Time past and time future
    What might have... More
  • O quick quick quick, quick hear the song sparrow,
    Swamp sparrow, fox sparrow, vesper... More
  • All are delectable. Sweet sweet sweet
    But resign this land at the end, resign it
    To its... More
  • The lot of man is ceaseless labour,
    Or ceaseless idleness, which is still harder,
    Or... More
  • When your fathers fixed the place of GOD,
    And settled all the inconvenient... More
  • In our rhythm of earthly life we tire of light. We are glad when the day ends, when the play... More
  • There are those who would build the Temple,
    And those who prefer that the Temple should not... More
  • What life have you if you have not life together?
    There is no life that is not in community, More
  • Many are engaged in writing books and printing them,
    Many desire to see their names in... More
  • The soul of Man must quicken to creation.
    Out of the formless stone, when the artist united... More
  • And the Stranger will depart and return to the desert.
    O my soul, be prepared for the coming... More
  • A moment in time but time was made through that moment: for without the meaning there is no time,... More
  • O Father we welcome your words,
    And we will take heart for the future,
    Remembering the past. More
  • The Church must be forever building, for it is forever decaying within and attacked from without.... More
  • I journeyed to London, to the timekept City,
    Where the River flows, with foreign... More
  • The Church disowned, the tower overthrown, the bells upturned, what have we to do
    But stand... More
  • And if blood of Martyrs is to flow on the steps
    We must first build the steps;
    And if the... More
  • The heathen are come into thine inheritance,
    And thy temple have they defiled. More
  • Our age is an age of moderate virtue
    And of moderate vice
    When men will not lay down the... More
  • But it seems that something has happened that has never happened before: though we know not just... More
  • And in spite of all the dishonour,
    The broken standards, the broken lives,
    The broken... More
  • O Lord, deliver me from the man of excellent intention and impure heart: for the heart is... More
  • I say to you: Make perfect your will.
    I say: take no thought of the harvest,
    But only of... More
  • There is work together
    A Church for all
    And a job for each
    Every man to his work. More
  • Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness on the face of the deep.
    Has the Church failed... More
  • No man has hired us
    With pocketed hands
    And lowered faces
    We stand about in open... More
  • And the wind shall say: “Here were decent godless people:
    Their only monument the asphalt... More
  • And they came to an end, a dead end stirred with a flicker of life,
    And they came to the... More
  • It is hard for those who have never known persecution,
    And who have never known a... More
  • So they built as men must build
    With the sword in one hand and the trowel in the other. More
  • The endless cycle of idea and action,
    Endless invention, endless experiment,
    Brings... More
  • Nor does the family even move about together,
    But every son would have his motor... More
  • The desert is not only around the corner,
    The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to... More
  • And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one... More
  • Why should men love the Church? Why should they love her laws?
    She tells them of Life and... More
  • Where there is no temple there shall be no homes.... More
  • Out of the slimy mud of words, out of the sleet and hail of verbal imprecisions,
    Approximate... More
  • Where is the Life we have lost in living?
    Where is the wisdom we have lost in... More
  • Thus your fathers were made
    Fellow citizens of the saints, of the household of GOD, being... More
  • Though you forget the way to the Temple,
    There is one who remembers the way to your... More
  • The eastern light our spires touch at morning,
    The light that slants upon our western doors... More
  • The great snake lies ever half awake, at the bottom of the pit of the world, curled
    In folds... More
  • “... It may be Prester John’s balloon
    Or an old battered lantern hung aloft
    To light... More
  • “With your air indifferent and imperious
    At a stroke our mad poetics to confute—”
    ... More
  • “You, madam, are the eternal humorist,
    The eternal enemy of the absolute,
    Giving our... More
  • Miss Nancy Ellicott smoked
    And danced all the modern dances;
    And her aunts were not quite... More
  • Phlébas, le Phénicien, pendant quinze jours noyé,
    Oubliait les cris des mouettes et la... More
  • Cependant, ce fut jadis un bel homme, de haute taille. More
  • Gradually we come to admit that Shakespeare understands a greater extent and variety of human... More

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