Quotessence
Home / Authors / T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot Quotes

Playwright

Filter quotes by topic

AllQuartetsMenKnowsEndsIfsPoetThinkingLifeWorldPeoplePoetryWayShouldWaste LandArtLostStillsCatHumansInspirational

Famous T. S. Eliot Quotes

“No university ought to be merely a national institution....The universities should have their common ideals, they should have their common obligations toward each other. They should be independent of the governments of the countries in which they are situated. They should not be institutions for the training of an efficient bureaucracy, or for equipping scientists to get the better of foreign scientists; they should stand for the preservation of learning, for the pursuit of truth, and in so far as men are capable of it, the attainment of wisdom.”

MenShouldCountryGovernmentCommonOughtCapableTrainingIdealsShould HaveScientistIndependentInstitutionsUniversityPursuitObligationEfficientPreservationBureaucracyAttainment
Author:T. S. Eliot
Create image

“I confess . . . that I am not myself very much concerned with the question of influence, or with those publicists who have impressed their names upon the public by catching the morning tide and rowing very vast in the direction in which the current was flowing; but rather that there should always be a few writers preoccupied in penetrating to the core of the matter, in trying to arrive at the truth and to set it forth, without too much hope, without ambition to alter the immediate course of affairs, and without being downcast or defeated when nothing appears to ensue.”

ShouldTryingMatterCoursesNamesMorningToo MuchInfluenceAmbitionConcernedAffairCurrentsCoreTidesDefeatedImpressedCatchingRowingPublicists
Author:T. S. Eliot
Create image

“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.”

ShouldMatterMomentsForceGreatnessEternalCrisisIceTeaProphetCakeShould ICoatsFlickerSnickers
Author:T. S. Eliot
Create image

“I would meet you upon this honestly. I that was near your heart was removed therefrom To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition. I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it Since 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?”

NeedsShouldHeartUsePassionLostLosesTasteSightTerrorHearingSmellHonestlyContactShould IMy PassionInquisition
Book:The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot
Create image

“With Cats, some say, one rule is true: Don’t speak till you are spoken to. Myself, I do not hold with that — I say, you should ad-dress a Cat. But always keep in mind that he Resents familiarity. I bow, and taking off my hat, Ad-dress him in this form: O Cat! But if he is the Cat next door, Whom I have often met before (He comes to see me in my flat) I greet him with an oopsa Cat! I think I've heard them call him James — But we've not got so far as names.”

IfsThinkingShouldMindFormNextNamesSpeakDoorsHeardMetsCatDressesHatsFlatsAdsBowsFamiliarityResent
Book:The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume II: Practical Cats and Further Verses
Create image

“Religion, as distinguished from modern paganism, implies a life in conformity with nature. It may be observed that the natural life and the supernatural life have a conformity to each other which neither has with the mechanistic life...A wrong attitude towards nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude towards God...[We should] struggle to recover the sense of relation to nature and to God.”

ShouldMayNaturalAttitudeStruggleModernRelationConservativeConformityDistinguishedPaganismNatural LifeWrong Attitude
Author:T. S. Eliot
Create image