T. S. Eliot Quotes - Page 18

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Adventure Age Aging Ambition Appreciation Art Atheism

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

T. S. Eliot

Air, Wings, Dry

"Ash-Wednesday" l. 34 (1930)

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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.

T. S. Eliot

Views, Empathy, Outsiders

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It is self-evident that St. Louis affected me more deeply than any other environment has ever done. I feel that there is something in having passed one's childhood beside the big river, which is incommunicable to those people who have not. I consider myself fortunate to have been born here, rather than in Boston, or New York, or London.

T. S. Eliot

New York, Self, Boston

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Stand on the highest pavement of the stair- Lean on a garden urn- Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.

T. S. Eliot

Garden, Hair, Pavement

'La Figlia Che Piange' (1917)

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Human kind cannot bear much reality.

T. S. Eliot

Reality, Humanity, Bears

"In Light of India". Book by Octavio Paz, Chapter 1, www.nytimes.com. 1995.

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The only wisdom we can hope to acquire Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless. The houses are all gone under the sea. The dancers are all gone under the hill.

T. S. Eliot

Humility, Sea, House

1940 Four Quartets,'East Coker', pt.2.

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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. Through the unknown, remembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea.

T. S. Eliot

Children, Sea, Two

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

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To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy. In order to arrive at what you do not know You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance. In order to possess what you do not possess You must go by the way of dispossession. In order to arrive at what you are not You must go through the way in which you are not. And what you do not know is the only thing you know And what you own is what you do not own And where you are is where you are not.

T. S. Eliot

Ignorance, Order, Way

Four Quartets "East Coker" pt. 3 (1940)

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The purpose of a Christian education would not be merely to make men and women pious Christians: a system which aimed too rigidly at this end alone would become only obscurantist. A Christian education must primarily teach people to be able to think in Christian categories.

T. S. Eliot

Graduation, Christian, Men

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Where there is no temple there shall be no homes.

T. S. Eliot

Home, Temples

T. S. Eliot (2014). “Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950”, p.112, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Gradually we come to admit that Shakespeare understands a greater extent and variety of human life than Dante; but that Dante understands deeper degrees of degradation and higher degrees of exaltation.

T. S. Eliot

Exaltation, Degrees, Degradation

T.S. Eliot (1950). “Selected Essays”

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No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead.

T. S. Eliot

Appreciation, Art, Poet

T. S. Eliot (2014). “Selected Essays”, p.13, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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and now you live dispersed on ribbon roads, And no man knows or cares who is his neighbor Unless his neighbor makes too much disturbance, But all dash to and fro in motor cars, Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere.

T. S. Eliot

Men, Car, Ribbons

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I am moved by fancies that are curled, around these images and cling, the notion of some infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering thing.

T. S. Eliot

Suffering, Fancy, Gentle

"Preludes" l. 48 (1917)

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All art emulates the condition of ritual. That is what it comes from and to that it must always return for nourishment.

T. S. Eliot

Art, Poetry, Return

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And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness.

T. S. Eliot

Book, Writing, Silence

T. S. Eliot (2014). “The Rock: A Pageant Play”, p.40, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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There is not a more repulsive spectacle than on old man who will not forsake the world, which has already forsaken him.

T. S. Eliot

Men, Age, World

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Redeem the time. Redeem the unread vision of a higher dream.

T. S. Eliot

Dream, Vision, Higher

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It is a test (a positive test, I do not assert that it is always valid negatively), that genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

T. S. Eliot

Poetry, Tests, Genuine

T. S. Eliot (2014). “Selected Essays”, p.209, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Humankind cannot stand reality.

T. S. Eliot

Reality, Humankind

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Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand.

T. S. Eliot

Simple, Hands, Simplicity

T.S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.453, Faber & Faber

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Those who talk of the bible as a monument of English prose are merely admiring it as a monument over the grave of Christianity.

T. S. Eliot

Christianity, Graves, Admiring

1935 Religion and Literature.

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Hungry Hatred, will not strive against intelligence self-interest.

T. S. Eliot

Hate, Self, Hatred

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Talent imitates, but genius steals.

T. S. Eliot

Genius, Talent, Stealing

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The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end

T. S. Eliot

Life, Garden, Single Rose

T.S. Eliot (2010). “The Waste Land and Other Poems”, p.43, Faber & Faber

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Born: September 26, 1888
Died: January 4, 1965
Occupation: Playwright
Cite this Page: Citation

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