T.S. Eliot

“Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recallMy buried life, and Paris in the spring,I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the worldTo be wonderful and youthful afterall”

“Now that the lilacs are in bloomShe has a bowl of lilacs in her room”

“We see the light but see not whence it comes. O Light Invisible, we glorify Thee!”

“O perpetual revolution of configured stars, o perpetual recurrence of determined seasons, o world of spring and autumn, birth and dying! The endless cycle of idea and action, endless invention, endless experiment, brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; knowledge of speech, but not of silence; knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word. All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance, all our ignorance brings us nearer to death, but nearness to death no nearer to God. Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.”

“This form, this face, this life living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken, the awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.”

“And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices in the lost lilac and the lost sea voices and the weak spirit quickens to rebel for the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell quickens to recover.”

“Fading, fading: strength beyond hope and despair climbing the third stair. Lord, I am not worthy Lord, I am not worthy but speak the word only.”

“And indeed there will be time for the yellow smoke that slides along the street rubbing its back upon the window-panes; there will be time , there will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; there will be time to murder and create, and time for all the works and days of hands that lift and drop a question on your plate; time for you and time for me, and time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions, before the taking of toast and tea.”

“Where is the Life we lost in living?”

“I love reading another reader’s list of favorites. Even when I find I do not share their tastes or predilections, I am provoked to compare, contrast, and contradict. It is a most healthy exercise, and one altogether fruitful.”

“For last year's words belong to last year's languageAnd next year's words await another voice.And to make an end is to make a beginning."(Little Gidding)”

“LightLightThe visible reminder of Invisible Light.”

“certain of certain certainties.......”

“the evening lay out against the skyLike a patient, etherised on a table”

“Death! I had not thought Death had undone so many”

“I would meet you upon this honestly.I that was near your heart was removed therefromTo lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep itSince what is kept must be adulterated?I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:How should I use them for your closer contact?”

“It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous.Resign yourself to be the fool you are......We must always take risks. That is our destiny...”

“I gotta use words to talk to you.”

“The dream crossed twilight between birth and dying.”

“Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

“The last act is the greatest treason. To do the right deed for the wrong reason.”

“Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh; The worlds revolve like ancient women Gathering fuel in vacant lots.”

“And the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the first time”

“If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spentIf the unheard, unspokenWord is unspoken, unheard;Still is the spoken word, the Word unheard,The Word without a word, the Word withinThe world and for the world;And the light shone in the darkness andAgainst the Word the unstilled world still whirledAbout the center of the silent Word.Oh my people, what have I done unto thee.Where shall the word be found, where shall the wordResound? Not here, there is not enough silence”

“What have we given?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 existed.”

“I should have been a pair of ragged claws/ Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”

“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.”

“Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other Who think the same thoughts without need of speech”

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

“We ask only to be reassuredAbout the noises in the cellarAnd the window that should not have been open”

“If you will not have God (and He is a jealous God), you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin.”

“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.”

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

“Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch”

“No one can become really educated without having pursued some study in which he took no interest- for it is a part of education to learn to interest ourselves in subjects for which we have no aptitude.”

“Whatever you think, be sure it is what you think; whatever you want, be sure that is what you want; whatever you feel, be sure that is what you feel.”

“Half 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. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”

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

“The dove descending breaks the airWith flame of incandescent terrorOf which the tongues declareThe one discharge from sin and error.The only hope, or else despairLies in the choice of pyre or pyre-To be redeemed from fire by fire. Who then devised the torment? Love.Love is the unfamiliar NameBehind the hands that woveThe intolerable shirt of flameWhich human power cannot remove.We only live, only suspireConsumed by either fire or fire.”

“What profession is more trying than that of author? After you finish a piece of work it only seems good to you for a few weeks; or if it seems good at all you are convinced that it is the last you will be able to write; and if it seems bad you wonder whether everything you have done isn’t poor stuff really; and it is one kind of agony while you are writing, and another kind when you aren’t.”

“Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity”

“Uncorsetted, her friendly bustGives promise of pneumatic bliss.”

“I must tell you that I should really like to think there's something wrong with me- Because, if there isn't, then there's something wrong with the world itself-and that's much more frightening! That would be terrible. So I'd rather believe there is something wrong with me, that could be put right.”

“The Pekes and the Pollicles, everyone knows, Are proud and implacable, passionate foes;It is always the same, wherever one goes.And the Pugs and the Poms, although most people saythat they do not like fighting, will often displayEvery symptom of wanting to join in the fray.And theyBark bark bark bark bark barkUntil you can hear them all over the park.”

“There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.”

“I can connectNothing with nothing”

“Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,And in short, I was afraid. ”

“I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”

“Between the ideaAnd the realityBetween the motionAnd the actFalls the Shadow”

“And would it have been worth it, after all,Would it have been worth while,After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor - And this, and so much more? -”