I suppose some editors are failed writers; but so are most writers.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Authors & Writing, Writers
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Present, Reality
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
What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Resilience, Moving on, Beginnings
Humility is the most difficult of all virtues to achieve; nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of oneself.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Humility
Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Success, Success & Failure
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
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
It is impossible to design a system so perfect that no one needs to be good.
—T. S. Eliot
Poetry should help, not only to refine the language of the time, but to prevent it from changing too rapidly.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Language, Poetry
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: Babies, Family
In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Decisions, Indecision, Decision
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.
—T. S. Eliot
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory out of desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in a forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Seasons
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Reality
There are men whose presence infuses trust and reverence.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Men
In my end is my beginning.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Dying, Ending, Beginning, Death
The dream crossed twilight between birth and dying.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Life
Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Insanity
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Courage
There is no method but to be very intelligent.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Science
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender which an age of prudence can never retract.
—T. S. Eliot
Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important … they do not mean to do harm … they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Greatness, Worth, Responsibility, Consequences
Sometimes things become possible if we want them bad enough.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Bad Times
One starts an action simply because one must do something.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Motivation, Secrets of Success
Each venture is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate with shabby equipment always deteriorating in the general mess of imprecision of feeling.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Poets, Poetry
An editor should tell the author his writing is better than it is. Not a lot better, a little better.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Authors & Writing, Writing
Birth, copulation and death. That’s all the facts when you come to the brass tacks.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Life, Living
What is actual is actual only for one lime, and only for one place.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Change
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Henry James American-born British Novelist
- Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor British Politician
- Dorothy L. Sayers English Novelist, Playwright
- Robert Penn Warren American Novelist, Poet
- Bertrand A. Russell British Philosopher, Mathematician
- Rudyard Kipling British Children’s Books Writer
- W. H. Auden British-born American Poet
- Edith Sitwell British Poet
- William Butler Yeats Irish Poet
- Louis Leo Snyder American Historian
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