T. S. Eliot Quotes

1888-1965, American-born British Poet, Critic
quotes
64
topics
12
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“In my beginning is my end.”
Beginning
“You are the music while the music lasts.”
Music
“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”
Reality
“I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”
VerifiedThe Waste Land (1922) · evidenceFear
“There is no method but to be very intelligent.”
Methods
“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”
VerifiedThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915) · evidenceFutility
“Liberty is a different kind of pain from prison.”
Freedom
“All cases are unique and very similar to others.”
Originality
“Only by acceptance of the past, can you alter it.”
Past
“The dream crossed twilight between birth and dying.”
Life and Living
“A tradition without intelligence is not worth having.”
Tradition
“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”
Verified"Dante" (1929), in Selected Essays (1932), p. 238 · evidenceCommunication
“Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.”
Writers and Writing
“In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo.”
VerifiedThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915) · evidenceCulture
“Love is most nearly itself when here and now cease to matter.”
Love
“People exercise an unconscious selection in being influenced.”
Influence
“It's not wise to violate rules until you know how to observe them.”
Rebellion
“I suppose some editors are failed writers; but so are most writers.”
Editing and Editors
“Art never improves, but the material of art is never quite the same.”
Arts and Artists
“The young feel tired at the end of an action, the old at the beginning.”
Youth
“It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labor.”
Tradition
“Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.”
Pride
“Our emotions are only ''incidents in the effort to keep day and night together.”
Emotions
“Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.”
Success
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
VerifiedPreface to Transit of Venus: Poems by Harry Crosby (1931) · evidenceRisk
“In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”
VerifiedThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915) · evidenceIndecision
“Birth, copulation and death. That's all the facts when you come to the brass tacks.”
Life and Living
“Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.”
Insanity
“The awful daring of a moment's surrender which an age of prudence can never retract.”
VerifiedThe Waste Land (1922) · evidenceImpulse