T. S. Eliot Quotes - Page 23

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• 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.

  T. S. Eliot

  Voice, Speak, Awareness

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

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• 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

  Fighting, Men, Suffering

  T.S. Eliot (2011). “The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot”, p.256, Faber & Faber

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• I must say Bernard Shaw is greatly improved by music.

  T. S. Eliot

  Bernard Shaw

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• The past and future / Are conquered, and reconciled.

  T. S. Eliot

  Past, Quartets

  T. S. Eliot (2014). “Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950”, p.145, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation are directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry.

  T. S. Eliot

  Appreciation, Editors, Criticism

  "Selected Essays".

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• 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

  Believe, Numbers, Atmosphere

  "Reading Prose: An Introduction to Critical Study". Book by T. S. Eliot (p. 505), 1952.

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• The chief danger about Paris is that it is such a strong stimulant.

  T. S. Eliot

  Strong, Paris, Danger

  T.S. Eliot (2011). “The Letters of T. S. Eliot Volume 1: 1898-1922”, p.537, Faber & Faber

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• Upon the glazen shelves kept watch Matthew and Waldo, guardians of the faith The army of unalterable law.

  T. S. Eliot

  Army, Law, Watches

  T. S. Eliot (2012). “The Waste Land, Prufrock and Other Poems”, p.21, Courier Corporation

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• I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jennyanydots;Her coat is one of the tabby kind,with tiger stripes and lepard spots.

  T. S. Eliot

  Cat, Names, Stripes

  T. S. Eliot, “The Old Gumbie Cat”

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• The dripping blood our only drink, The bloody flesh our only food: In spite of which we like to think That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

  T. S. Eliot

  Friday, Jesus, Thinking

  Four Quartets "East Coker" pt. 4 (1940)

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• I shall not want Honor in Heaven For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney And have talk with Coriolanus And other heroes of that kidney.

  T. S. Eliot

  Hero, Heaven, Honor

  T. S. Eliot (2012). “The Waste Land, Prufrock and Other Poems”, p.30, Courier Corporation

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• But it seems that something has happened that has never happened before; though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where. Men have left God not for gods, they say, but for no gods; and this has never happened before. That men both deny gods and worship gods, professing first Reason, and the money, and power, and what they call life, or race, or dialect.The church disowned, the tower overthrown, the bells upturned, what have we to do but stand with empty hands and palms upturned in an age which advances progressively backwards?

  T. S. Eliot

  Religious, Men, Race

  T.S. Eliot (2011). “The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot”, p.144, Faber & Faber

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• A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many.

  T. S. Eliot

  Bridges, Crowds, London

  The Waste Land l. 60 (1922).

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• I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river is a strong brown god-sullen, untamed and intractable, Patient to some degree, at first recognized as a frontier; Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce; Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges. The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten By the dwellers in cities-ever, however, implacable. Keeping his seasons, and rages, destroyer, reminder Of what men choose to forget. Unhonored, unpropitiated By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting.

  T. S. Eliot

  Strong, Rain, Thinking

  T. S. Eliot, “Four Quartets 3: The Dry Salvages”

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• Although I do not hope to turn again
  Although I do not hope
  Although I do not hope to turn

  T. S. Eliot

  Hope, Turns

  T.S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.96, Faber & Faber

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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.

  T. S. Eliot

  Two, Progress, Were Meant To Be

  'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' (1917)

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• I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god-sullen, untamed and intractable.

  T. S. Eliot

  Strong, Thinking, Rivers

  Four Quartets "The Dry Salvages" pt. 1 (1941)

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• These are only hints and guesses,
  Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
  Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.

  T. S. Eliot

  Prayer, Discipline, Hints

  "The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems".

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• …Forgive us, O Lord, we acknowledge ourselves as type of the common man, Of the men and women who shut the door and sit by the fire; Who fear the blessing of God, the loneliness of the night of God, the surrender required, the deprivation inflicted; Who fear the injustice of men less than the justice of God; Who fear the hand at the window, the fire in the thatch, the fist in the tavern, the push into the canal, Less than we fear the love of God.

  T. S. Eliot

  Loneliness, Blessing, Night

  T. S. Eliot (2014). “The Complete Plays of T. S. Eliot”, p.55, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The naming of cats is a difficult matter

  T. S. Eliot

  Cat, Matter, Difficult

  Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats "The Naming of Cats" l. 1 (1939)

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• We are the hollow men
  We are the stuffed men
  Leaning together...

  T. S. Eliot

  Learning, Men, Together

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• Mediocre writers borrow; great writers steal.

  T. S. Eliot

  Crafts, Stealing, Mediocre

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• I confess . . . that I am not myself very much concerned with the question of influence, or with those publicists who have impressed their names upon the public by catching the morning tide and rowing very vast in the direction in which the current was flowing; but rather that there should always be a few writers preoccupied in penetrating to the core of the matter, in trying to arrive at the truth and to set it forth, without too much hope, without ambition to alter the immediate course of affairs, and without being downcast or defeated when nothing appears to ensue.

  T. S. Eliot

  Morning, Ambition, Names

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• Composing on the typewriter, I find that I am sloughing off all my long sentences which I used to dote upon. Short, staccato, like modern French prose. The typewriter makes for lucidity, but I am not sure that it encourages subtlety.

  T. S. Eliot

  Typewriters, Long, Crafts

  T. S. Eliot (2011). “The Letters of T. S. Eliot Volume 1: 1898-1922”, p.240, Faber & Faber

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• 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

  Work, Book, Breathing

  T.S. Eliot (2010). “The Waste Land and Other Poems”, p.84, Broadview Press

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