A List of Famous T. S. Eliot Quotes By Reference

A list of quotes from T. S. Eliot. Here are the best T. S. Eliot quotes on various subjects. The T. S. Eliot quotations list is alphabetical but can be sorted by any column. Enjoy these sayings coined by T. S. Eliot. You can use the items in this list to create a new list, re-rank it to fit your opinion, then share it with your Facebook friends, Twitter followers or with any other social networks you use on a regular basis.

Print Blog View Views: 5078 Items: 73

< >

Show: 25 100

Order Name Author Subjects

1

A people without history is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern of timeless moments.

T. S. Eliot
2

A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good.

T. S. Eliot

Plays
3

A tradition without intelligence is not worth having.

T. S. Eliot

Tradition
4

All cases are unique and very similar to others.

T. S. Eliot

Originality
5

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

T. S. Eliot

Editing and Editors
6

And what the dead had no speech for, when living, they can tell you, being dead: the communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.

T. S. Eliot

Death and Dying
7

April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.

T. S. Eliot

Spring
8

Art never improves, but the material of art is never quite the same.

T. S. Eliot

Arts and Artists
9

Birth, copulation and death. That's all the facts when you come to the brass tacks.

T. S. Eliot

Life and Living
10

Business today consists in persuading crowds.

T. S. Eliot
11

Do I dare disturb the universe?

T. S. Eliot
12

Each venture is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate with shabby equipment always deteriorating in the general mess of imprecision of feeling.

T. S. Eliot

Poetry and Poets
13

Footfalls echo in the memory down the passage which we did not take towards the door we never opened into the rose-garden.

T. S. Eliot

Regret
14

For every life and every act consequence of good and evil can be shown and as in time results of many deeds are blended so good and evil in the end become confounded.

T. S. Eliot

Consequences
15

For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice.

T. S. Eliot

Words
16

For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

T. S. Eliot
17

Friendship should be more than biting time can sever.

T. S. Eliot

Friends and Friendship
18

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

T. S. Eliot

Communication
19

Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to ...

T. S. Eliot
20

Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.

T. S. Eliot

Importance
21

Hell is oneself, hell is alone, the other figures in it merely projections. There is nothing to escape from and nothing to escape to. One is always alone.

T. S. Eliot

Hell
22

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.

T. S. Eliot

Reality
23

I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.

T. S. Eliot

Age and Aging
24

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

T. S. Eliot

Futility
25

I suppose some editors are failed writers; but so are most writers.

T. S. Eliot

Writers and Writing, Editing and Editors
26

I take as metaphysical poetry that in which what is ordinarily apprehensible only by thought is brought within the grasp of feeling, or that in which what is ordinarily only felt is transformed into thought without ceasing to be feeling.

T. S. Eliot

Poetry and Poets
27

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

T. S. Eliot

Fear
28

If you haven't the strength to impose your own terms upon life, you must accept the terms it offers you.

T. S. Eliot

Power
29

In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

T. S. Eliot

Indecision
30

In my beginning is my end.

T. S. Eliot

Beginning
31

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

T. S. Eliot

Culture
32

It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labor.

T. S. Eliot

Tradition
33

It is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.

T. S. Eliot

Television
34

It is obvious that we can no more explain a passion to a person who has never experienced it than we can explain light to the blind.

T. S. Eliot
35

It seems just possible that a poem might happen to a very young man: but a poem is not poetry --That is a life.

T. S. Eliot

Poetry and Poets
36

It's not wise to violate rules until you know how to observe them.

T. S. Eliot

Rebellion
37

Liberty is a different kind of pain from prison.

T. S. Eliot

Freedom
38

Love is most nearly itself when here and now cease to matter.

T. S. Eliot

Love
39

Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.

T. S. Eliot

Pride
40

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.

T. S. Eliot

Babies
41

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.

T. S. Eliot

Futility
42

Only by acceptance of the past, can you alter it.

T. S. Eliot

Past
43

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

T. S. Eliot

Risk
44

Our emotions are only incidents in the effort to keep day and night together.

T. S. Eliot

Emotion
45

People exercise an unconscious selection in being influenced.

T. S. Eliot

Influence
46

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion…

T. S. Eliot
47

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
48

Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.

T. S. Eliot

Success
49

The awful daring of a moment's surrender which an age of prudence can never retract.

T. S. Eliot

Impulse
50

The dream crossed twilight between birth and dying.

T. S. Eliot

Life and Living
51

The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.

T. S. Eliot

Deeds and Good Deeds
52

The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.

T. S. Eliot

Arts and Artists
53

The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.

T. S. Eliot

Age and Aging
54

The young feel tired at the end of an action, the old at the beginning.

T. S. Eliot

Youth
55

There are flood and drought over the eyes and in the mouth, dead water and dead sand contending for the upper hand. The parched eviscerate soil gapes at the vanity of toil, laughs without mirth. This is the death of the earth.

T. S. Eliot

Famine
56

There is no method but to be very intelligent.

T. S. Eliot

Methods
57

Think not forever of yourselves, O Chiefs, nor of your own generation. Think of continuing generations of our families, think of our grandchildren and of those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground.

T. S. Eliot

Peace
58

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.

T. S. Eliot
59

Time past and time future what might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present.

T. S. Eliot

Present
60

War is not a life: it is a situation, one which may neither be ignored nor accepted.

T. S. Eliot

War
61

We are not here to triumph by fighting, by strata gem, or by resistance, not to fight with beasts as men. We have fought the beast and have conquered. We have only to conquer now, by suffering. This is the easier victory.

T. S. Eliot

Martyrdom
62

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.

T. S. Eliot

Novelty
63

We might remind ourselves that criticism is as inevitable as breathing, and that we should be none the worse for articulating what passes in our minds when we read a book and feel an emotion about it, for criticizing our own minds in their work of criticism.

T. S. Eliot

Critics and Criticism
64

We must believe that emotion recollected in tranquillity is an inexact formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor without distortion of meaning, tranquillity. It is a concentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration of a very great number of experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to be experiences at all; it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation. These experiences are not recollected and they finally unite in an atmosphere which is tranquil only in that it is a passive attending upon the event.

T. S. Eliot

Poetry and Poets
65

We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started... and know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot

Exploration
66

We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot
67

What we know of other people's only our memory of the moments during which we knew them.

T. S. Eliot

other people
68

When a poet's mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experiences.

T. S. Eliot

Poetry and Poets
69

When we read of human beings behaving in certain ways, with the approval of the author, who gives his benediction to this behavior by his attitude towards the result of the behavior arranged by himself, we can be influenced towards behaving in the same way.

T. S. Eliot

Literature
70

Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.

T. S. Eliot

Insanity
71

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

T. S. Eliot

Knowledge, Wisdom, Information
72

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information.

T. S. Eliot

Knowledge, Wisdom, Information
73

You are the music while the music lasts.

T. S. Eliot

Music

Showing items 1 - 25 of 73

A List of Famous T. S. Eliot Quotes you can use this list to help make your own ranked list about this topic

A people without history is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern of timeless moments.

A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good.

A tradition without intelligence is not worth having.

All cases are unique and very similar to others.

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

And what the dead had no speech for, when living, they can tell you, being dead: the communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.

April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.

Art never improves, but the material of art is never quite the same.

Birth, copulation and death. That's all the facts when you come to the brass tacks.

Business today consists in persuading crowds.

Do I dare disturb the universe?

Each venture is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate with shabby equipment always deteriorating in the general mess of imprecision of feeling.

Footfalls echo in the memory down the passage which we did not take towards the door we never opened into the rose-garden.

For every life and every act consequence of good and evil can be shown and as in time results of many deeds are blended so good and evil in the end become confounded.

For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice.

For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

Friendship should be more than biting time can sever.

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to ...

Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.

Hell is oneself, hell is alone, the other figures in it merely projections. There is nothing to escape from and nothing to escape to. One is always alone.

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.

I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

I suppose some editors are failed writers; but so are most writers.

I take as metaphysical poetry that in which what is ordinarily apprehensible only by thought is brought within the grasp of feeling, or that in which what is ordinarily only felt is transformed into thought without ceasing to be feeling.

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

If you haven't the strength to impose your own terms upon life, you must accept the terms it offers you.

In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

In my beginning is my end.

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

It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labor.

It is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.

It is obvious that we can no more explain a passion to a person who has never experienced it than we can explain light to the blind.

It seems just possible that a poem might happen to a very young man: but a poem is not poetry --That is a life.

It's not wise to violate rules until you know how to observe them.

Liberty is a different kind of pain from prison.

Love is most nearly itself when here and now cease to matter.

Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.

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.

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.

Only by acceptance of the past, can you alter it.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

Our emotions are only incidents in the effort to keep day and night together.

People exercise an unconscious selection in being influenced.

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion…

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.

Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.

The awful daring of a moment's surrender which an age of prudence can never retract.

The dream crossed twilight between birth and dying.

The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.

The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.

The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.

The young feel tired at the end of an action, the old at the beginning.

There are flood and drought over the eyes and in the mouth, dead water and dead sand contending for the upper hand. The parched eviscerate soil gapes at the vanity of toil, laughs without mirth. This is the death of the earth.

There is no method but to be very intelligent.

Think not forever of yourselves, O Chiefs, nor of your own generation. Think of continuing generations of our families, think of our grandchildren and of those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground.

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.

Time past and time future what might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present.

War is not a life: it is a situation, one which may neither be ignored nor accepted.

We are not here to triumph by fighting, by strata gem, or by resistance, not to fight with beasts as men. We have fought the beast and have conquered. We have only to conquer now, by suffering. This is the easier victory.

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.

We might remind ourselves that criticism is as inevitable as breathing, and that we should be none the worse for articulating what passes in our minds when we read a book and feel an emotion about it, for criticizing our own minds in their work of criticism.

We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started... and know the place for the first time.

We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

What we know of other people's only our memory of the moments during which we knew them.

When a poet's mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experiences.

When we read of human beings behaving in certain ways, with the approval of the author, who gives his benediction to this behavior by his attitude towards the result of the behavior arranged by himself, we can be influenced towards behaving in the same way.

Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information.

You are the music while the music lasts.