T.S. Eliot

“The still point in a turning world.”

“Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats 5 Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question … 10 Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo.”

“Because I do not hope to turn againBecause I do not hopeBecause I do not hope to turnDesiring this man's gift and that man's scopeI no longer strive to strive towards such things(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)Why should I mournThe vanished power of the usual reign?”

“the communication/of the dead is tongued with fire beyond/the language of the living"--The Little Gidding”

“Knowledge is invariably a matter of degree : you cannot put your finger upon even the simplest datum and say 'this we know'.”

“And through the spaces of the darkMidnight shakes the memoryAs a madman shakes a dead geranium.”

“And I must borrow every changing shapeTo find expression ... dance, danceLike a dancing bear,Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape.Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance”

“But the Church cannot be, in any political sense, either conservative or liberal, or revolutionary. Conservatism is too often conservation of the wrong things: liberalism a relaxation of discipline; revolution a denial of the permanent things.”

“Our emotionsAre only “incidents”In the effort to keep day and night together.”

“I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, and I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, and in short, I was afraid.”

“If the reader says the state of affairs which I wish to bring about is right, or is just, or is inevitable and if this must lead into further deterioration, then I will have no quarrel with it. I might even, in some circumstances, feel obliged to support him. ”

“We are being made aware that the organization of society on the principle of private profit, as well as public destruction, is leading both to the deformation of humanity by unregulated industrialism, and to the exhaustion of natural resources, and that a good deal of our material progress is a progress for which succeeding generations may have to pay dearly.”

“Words move, music movesOnly in time; but that which is only livingCan only die. Words, after speech, reachInto the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,Can words or music reachThe stillness...”

“We returned to our palaces, these Kingdoms, but no longer at ease here in the old dispensation, with an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.”

“That is not it at all,That is not what I meant, at all.”

“In spite of all the dishonour,the broken standards, the broken lives,The broken faith in one place or another,There was something left that was more than the talesOf old men on winter evenings.”

“What is hell? 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.”

“The poet's mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.”

“Because I know that time is time and place is always and only place and what is actual is actual only for one time and only for one place, I rejoice that things are as they are and I renounce the blessed faces and renounce the voice because I cannot hope to turn again.”

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

“Teach us to care and not to careTeach us to sit still.”

“The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man”

“Sovegna vos.Here are the years that walk between, bearingAway the fiddles and the flutes, restoringOne who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearingWhite light folded, sheathed about her, folded.The new years walk, restoringThrough a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoringWith a new verse the ancient rhyme. RedeemThe time. RedeemThe unread vision in the higher dreamWhile jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.”

“Datta, dayadhvam, damyata(Give, sympathize, control)”

“If Hell is where nothing connects, then being in the field of English must be the key to heaven's door! We are in the business of finding connections--within texts, between texts and contexts, between texts and ourselves, between our readings and the readings of other interpreters.”

“not fare well, but fare forward”

“And I have known the eyes already, known them all—The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?And how should I presume?”

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

“And right action is freedom from past and future also.For most of us, this is the aim never to be realized. Who are only undefeated because we have gone on trying. "The Dry Salvages”

“Distracted from distraction by distraction”

“My friend, blood shaking my heartThe awful daring of a moment’s surrenderWhich an age of prudence can never retractBy this, and this only, we have existedWhich is not to be found in our obituariesOr in memories draped by the beneficent spiderOr under seals broken by the lean solicitorIn our empty rooms”

“Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries have bought us farther from God and nearer to the dust”

“Think neither fear nor courage saves us.Unnatural vices are fathered by our heroism. Virtues are forced upon us by our impudent crimes. These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.”

“As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill.”

“For you know only a heap of broken images”

“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. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these.”

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

“We don't actually fear death, we fear that no one will notice our absence, that we will disappear without a trace.”

“Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.”

“Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?”

“Jellicle Cats are black and whiteJellicle Cats are rather smallJellicle Cats are merry and brightAnd pleasant to hear when they caterwaul.Jellicle Cats have cheerful faces,Jellicle Cats have bright black eyes;They like to practise their airs and gracesAnd wait for the Jellicle Moon to rise.”

“One of the surest tests of the superiority or inferiority of a poet is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate mature poets steal bad poets deface what they take and good poets make it into something better or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique utterly different than that from which it is torn the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time or alien in language or diverse in interest.”

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

“We do not pass through the same door twiceOr return to the door through which we did not pass”

“We must learn to suffer more.”

“My external sensations are no less private to myself than are my thoughts or my feelings. In either case my experience falls within my own circle, a circle closed on the outside; and, with all its elements alike, every sphere is opaque to the others which surround it. . . . In brief, regarded as an existence which appears in a soul, the whole world for each is peculiar and private to that soul.”

“Quick now, here, now, always-A condition of complete simplicity(Costing not less than everything)And all shall be well andAll manner of thing shall be wellWhen the tongues of flame are in-foldedInto the crowned knot of fireAnd the fire and the rose are one.”

“The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panesThe yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panesLicked its tongue into the corners of the eveningLingered upon the pools that stand in drainsLet fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneysSlipped by the terrace, made a sudden leapAnd seeing that it was a soft October nightCurled once about the house, and fell asleep”

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”

“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.”