“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 who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.”
Poetry
“We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion.”
ReligionAll Quotes by T. S. Eliot
“Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”
Knowledge“Our high respect for a well read person is praise enough for literature.”
Respect“All significant truths are private truths. As they become public they cease to become truths they become facts, or at best, part of the public character or at worst, catchwords.”
Best“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”
Poetry“The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.”
Work“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.”
Christmas“Every experience is a paradox in that it means to be absolute, and yet is relative in that it somehow always goes beyond itself and yet never escapes itself.”
Experience“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.”
Age“Poetry should help, not only to refine the language of the time, but to prevent it from changing too rapidly.”
Poetry“We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion.”
Religion“Home is where one starts from.”
Home“This love is silent.”
Love“Art never improves, but... the material of art is never quite the same.”
Art“As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.”
Poetry“It is only in the world of objects that we have time and space and selves.”
Time“Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.”
Poetry“Television is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.”
Time“You are the music while the music lasts.”
Music“A toothache, or a violent passion, is not necessarily diminished by our knowledge of its causes, its character, its importance or insignificance.”
Knowledge