T.S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-09-26–1965-01-04) was an English poet, dramatist, and literary critic, born in the United States.
Found 75 thoughts of T.S. Eliot
The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.
T.S. Eliot
And I will show you something different from either your shadow at morning striding behind you or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
T.S. Eliot
Friendship should be more than biting time can sever.
T.S. Eliot
The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.
T.S. Eliot
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
It's strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words.
T.S. Eliot
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 of odds and ends... 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!
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
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
There is one order of beauty which seems made to turn heads. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle.
T.S. Eliot
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
T.S. Eliot
The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions.
T.S. Eliot
For I have known them all already, know them all -- have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
T.S. Eliot
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
T.S. Eliot
Think not forever of yourselves, O Chiefs, nor of your own generation. Think of continuing generations of our families, think of our grandchildren and of those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground.
T.S. Eliot
My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.
T.S. Eliot
Radio is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome
T.S. Eliot
No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.
T.S. Eliot
When one wanted one's interests looking after whatever the cost, it was not so well for a lawyer to be over honest, else he might not be up to other people's tricks.
T.S. Eliot
Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.
T.S. Eliot
Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.
T.S. Eliot
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
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
T.S. Eliot
Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.
T.S. Eliot
