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T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot Quotes

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“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.”

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Book:Christianity and Culture
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“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.”

NightCertainAsksRoomsHalfTalkingSkyStreetsArgumentTablesPatientSpreadEveningRestaurantsHotelOverwhelmingShellsRetreatRestlessComes And GoesOne NightTediousOystersDesertedInsidiousMutteringSawdustRestless Nights
Author:T. S. Eliot
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“To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy. In order to arrive at what you do not know You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance. In order to possess what you do not possess You must go by the way of dispossession. In order to arrive at what you are not You must go through the way in which you are not. And what you do not know is the only thing you know And what you own is what you do not own And where you are is where you are not.”

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Author:T. S. Eliot
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“If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent If the unheard, unspoken Word is unspoken, unheard; Still is the spoken word, the Word unheard, The Word without a word, the Word within The world and for the world; And the light shone in the darkness and Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled About the center of the silent Word. Oh my people, what have I done unto thee. Where shall the word be found, where shall the word Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence”

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Author:T. S. Eliot
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“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.”

MenLifeInspirationalChildrenEnoughBeautifulAbilityCourageousOne ManGood LifeContemplatingBeautiful ThingsUseful ThingsUseful Life
Book:The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism: Studies in the Relation of Criticism to Poetry in England
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“The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap And seeing that it was a soft October night Curled once about the house, and fell asleep”

MadeNightFallHouseSeeingWindowCornersTongueEveningSmokeLeapYellowPoolFogOctoberDrainsChimneysTerraceMuzzleWindow Panes
Book:The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot
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“The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways. Six o'clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps The grimy scraps Of withered leaves about your feet And newspapers from vacant lots; The showers beat On broken blinds and chimney-pots, And at the corner of the street A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps. And then the lighting of the lamps.”

EndsFeetStreetsBrokenSixBeatsLonelyHorseWinterCornersSmellNewspapersEveningClockSettlingPotShowersStampsLampsWrapsLightingSteamScrapSteakSettling DownCabVacantChimneysWitheredBurnt OutWithered Leaves
Author:T. S. Eliot
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“You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends, And how, how rare and strange it is, to find In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends, (For indeed I do not love it ... you knew? you are not blind! How keen you are!) To find a friend who has these qualities, Who has, and gives Those qualities upon which friendship lives. How much it means that I say this to you- Without these friendships-life, what cauchemar!”

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Book:The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot
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“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.”

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Book:The Waste Land, Prufrock and Other Poems
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