T. S. Eliot

“Either everything in man can be traced as a development from below, or something must come from above. There is no avoiding that dilemma: you must be either a naturalist or a supernaturalist.”

“There is no method but to be very intelligent.”

“And the wind shall say: 'Here were decent Godless people:Their only monument the asphalt roadAnd a thousand lost golf balls.”

“Or music heard so deeplyThat it is not heard at all, but you are the musicWhile the music lasts.”

“The river is within us, the sea is all about us;”

“The emotion of art is impersonal. And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done. And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living.”

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

“He who was living is now dead.We who were living are now dying.”

“Home is where one starts from. As we grow olderThe world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicatedOf dead and living. Not the intense momentIsolated, with no before and after,But a lifetime burning in every momentAnd not the lifetime of one man onlyBut of old stones that cannot be deciphered.There is a time for the evening under starlight,A time for the evening under lamplight(The evening with the photograph album).Love is most nearly itselfWhen here and now cease to matter.Old men ought to be explorersHere or there does not matterWe must be still and still movingInto another intensityFor a further union, a deeper communionThrough the dark cold and the empty desolation,The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast watersOf the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.”

“We read many books, because we cannot know enough people.”

“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. I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind Do I dare to eat a peach I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us and we drown.”

“Samo oni koji rizikuju da odu predaleko mogu da otkriju dokle čovek zaista može da stigne.”

“Tu nie ma wody tu jest tylko skałaSkała bez wody i piaszczysta drogaDroga wijąca się wśród gór nad namiMiędzy skałami głazami bez wodyGdyby tu była woda stanąłbym i piłLecz pośród skał nie można myśleć ani staćSuchy jest pot a stopy grzęzną w piachuGdyby tu woda spływała ze skałMartwa jest paszcza gór spróchniałe zęby pluć nie mogąTutaj nie można usiąść leżeć ani staćI ciszy nawet nie ma w górachTylko bezpłodny suchy grzmot bez deszczuI samotności nawet nie ma w górachTylko posępne czerwone twarze - drwią i szydząW drzwiach lepianek z popękanej gliny Gdyby tu była woda A nie skała Gdyby tu była skała Ale i woda I woda Źródło Sadzawka wśród skał Gdyby tu był chociażby wody dźwięk A nie cykada I śpiew suchych traw Ale na skale wody dźwięk Gdzie drozd-pustelnik śpiewa pośród sosen Krop kap krop kap kap kap kap Ale tu nie ma wodyKim jest ten trzeci, który zawsze idzie obok ciebie?Gdy liczę nas, jesteśmy tylko ty i jaLecz gdy spoglądam przed siebie w biel drogiZawsze ktoś jeszcze idzie obok ciebie,Stąpa spowity płaszczem brunatnym, w kapturzeNie wiem czy jest to kobieta czy mąż- Kim jest ten, który idzie po twej drugiej stronie?Co to za dźwięki wysoko w powietrzuPomruk matczynych lamentówCo to za hordy w kapturach, jak rojeNa bezkresnych równinach, utykają na spękanej ziemiOtoczonej jedynie płaskim horyzontemCo to za miasto nad łańcuchem górPęka i zrasta się i rozpryskuje - w fioletowym wietrzeWalące się wieżeJeruzalem Ateny AleksandriaWiedeń LondynNierzeczywiste”

“Аз зърнах своя най-върховен миг да тлее със последни силиаз зърнах Вечния вратар да ми държи балтона и да ми се хили,и казано накратко, ме е страх.”

“Trying to use words, and every attemptIs a wholly new start, and a different kind of failureBecause one has only learnt to get the better of wordsFor the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in whichOne is no longer disposed to say it. And so each ventureIs a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulateWith shabby equipment always deterioratingIn the general mess of imprecision of feeling,”

“Descend lower, descend onlyInto the world of perpetual solitude,World not world, but that which is not world,Internal darkness, deprivationAnd destitution of all property,Desiccation of the world of sense,Evacuation of the world of fancy,Inoperancy of the world of spirit;”

“You dozed, and watched the night revealingThe thousand sordid imagesOf which your soul was constituted;”

“Do I dare Disturb the universe?”

“Not the intense momentIsolated, with no before and after,But a lifetime burning in every moment.”

“To country people Cows are mild,And flee from any stick they throw;But I’m a timid town bred child,And all the cattle seem to know.”

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

“Culture may even be described simply as that which makes life worth living.”

“If we all were judged according to the consequencesOf all our words and deeds, beyond the intentionAnd beyond our limited understandingOf ourselves and others, we should all be condemned.”

“This love is silent.”

“A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel reader is not prepared to give.”

“My mind may be American but my heart is British.”

“Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison.”

“Hell is oneself,Hell is alone.”

“Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality.”

“After the torchlight red on sweaty facesAfter the frosty silence in the gardensAfter the agony in stony placesThe shouting and the cryingPrison and palace and reverberationOf thunder of spring over distant mountainsHe who was living is now deadWe who were living are now dyingWith a little patience Here is no water but only rockRock and no water and the sandy roadThe road winding above among the mountainsWhich are mountains of rock without waterIf there were water we should stop and drinkAmongst the rock one cannot stop or thinkSweat is dry and feet are in the sandIf there were only water amongst the rockDead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spitHere one can neither stand nor lie nor sit There is not even silence in the mountainsBut dry sterile thunder without rainThere is not even solitude in the mountainsBut red sullen faces sneer and snarlFrom doors of mudcracked houses If there were waterAnd no rockIf there were rockAnd also waterAnd water A springA pool among the rockIf there were the sound of water onlyNot the cicadaAnd dry grass singingBut sound of water over a rockWhere the hermit-thrush sings in the pine treesDrip drop drip drop drop drop dropBut there is no water- The Waste Land (ll. 322-358)”

“LAVINIA: Oh Edward! The point is, that since I've been awayI see that I've taken you much too seriously.And now I can see how absurd you are.EDWARD: That is a very serious conclusion to have arrived at in...how many?...thirty-two hours.”

“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; They called me the hyacinth girl.' —Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence. Od' und leer das Meer.”

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”

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

“We have lingered in the chambers of the seaBy sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brownTill human voices wake us... and we drown.”

“We shall not cease from explorationAnd the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the first time.”

“To believe in the supernatural is not simply to believe that after living a successful, material, and fairly virtuous life here one will continue to exist in the best-possible substitute for this world, or that after living a starved and stunted life here one will be compensated with all the good things one has gone without: it is to believe that the supernatural is the greatest reality here and now.”