Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965) was an American-born British poet, critic, and playwright. He was awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature and the Order of Merit in 1948.
Born in St Louis, Missouri, and educated at Harvard, the Sorbonne, and Oxford’s Merton College, Eliot is associated with the rise of literary modernism. His landmark poem, The Waste Land (1922,) was one of the central literary landmarks of the 20th century.
In 1927, Eliot became a British citizen. His increasing involvement with Christianity is chronicled in his poetry through The Hollow Men (1925,) The Journey of the Magi (1927,) Ash-Wednesday (1930) and climaxing in Four Quartets (1935–42,) the latter regarded by many scholars as his greatest poetic statement.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by T. S. Eliot
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Exploration, Discovery, Wilderness, Journeys
If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it offers you.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Power
There is no method but to be very intelligent.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Science
Quick now, here, now, always-
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
—T. S. Eliot
There are flood and drought over the eyes and in the mouth, dead water and dead sand contending for the upper hand. The parched eviscerate soil gapes at the vanity of toil, laughs without mirth. This is the death of the earth.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Food
It’s not wise to violate rules until you know how to observe them.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Revolution
Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Insanity
You are the music while the music lasts.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Music
We do not quite say that the new is more valuable because it fits in; but its fitting in is a test of its value—a test, it is true, which can only be slowly and cautiously applied, for we are none of us infallible judges of conformity.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Fashion
War is not a life: it is a situation, one which may neither be ignored nor accepted.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: War
In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Culture
Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs, rising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys, advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm, retreating to the corner of arm and knee, eager to be reassured, taking pleasure in the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Family, Babies
One starts an action simply because one must do something.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Secrets of Success, Motivation
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender which an age of prudence can never retract.
—T. S. Eliot
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.
—T. S. Eliot
Liberty is a different kind of pain from prison.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Freedom, Liberty
And the wind shall say “Here were decent godless people;
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls”.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Civilization
Those who say they give the public what it wants begin by underestimating public taste and end by debauching it.
—T. S. Eliot
I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Dance, Dancing
What is true, is true only for one time and only for one place.
—T. S. Eliot
Friendship should be more than biting time can sever.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Friends and Friendship
The dream crossed twilight between birth and dying.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Life
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 we have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these things.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Art, Poets, Poetry
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.
—T. S. Eliot
We are not here to triumph by fighting, by strata gem, or by resistance, not to fight with beasts as men. We have fought the beast and have conquered. We have only to conquer now, by suffering. This is the easier victory.
—T. S. Eliot
For every life and every act consequence of good and evil can be shown and as in time results of many deeds are blended so good and evil in the end become confounded.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Consequences
April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Rain, Seasons, Spring
In my end is my beginning.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Dying, Ending, Death, Beginning
Our emotions are only incidents in the effort to keep day and night together.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Togetherness, Emotions
We might remind ourselves that criticism is as inevitable as breathing, and that we should be none the worse for articulating what passes in our minds when we read a book and feel an emotion about it, for criticizing our own minds in their work of criticism.
—T. S. Eliot
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