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
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
An editor should tell the author his writing is better than it is. Not a lot better, a little better.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Writing, Authors & Writing
To each individual the world will take on a different connotation of meaning-the important lies in the desire to search for an answer.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Knowledge
It is only in the world of objects that we have time and space and selves.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Space
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
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
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
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: Discovery, Exploration
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
The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Goodness
What is true, is true only for one time and only for one place.
—T. S. Eliot
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
To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Happiness, Time Management, Value of Time
It is impossible to design a system so perfect that no one needs to be good.
—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
I don’t believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Aging, Age
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.
—T. S. Eliot
We must believe that “emotion recollected in tranquility” is an inexact formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor without distortion of meaning, tranquility. It is a concentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration of a very great number of experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to be experiences at all; it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation. These experiences are not “recollected” and they finally unite in an atmosphere which is “tranquil” only in that it is a passive attending upon the event.
—T. S. Eliot
Topics: Poetry
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