T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot OMwas an American-born British essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic and "one of the twentieth century's major poets". He moved to England in 1914 at age 25, settling, working and marrying there. He was eventually naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39, renouncing his American citizenship...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth26 September 1888
CountryUnited States of America
attitude creation wrong-attitude
A wrong attitude toward nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude toward God.
life thinking may
The fool,fixed in his folly,may think He can turn the wheel on which he turns.
hints half incarnation
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.
mother interesting want
Dear Mother, I am getting on nicely in my work at the bank, and like it ... I want to find out something about the science of money while I am at it; it is an extraordinarily interesting subject ...
cat speak
With cats, some say, one rule is true: Don't speak till you are spoken to.
enough born
I've been born, and once is enough.
men law life-and-death
Why should men love the Church? Why should they love her laws? She tells them of Life and Death, and of all that they would forget.
children sea two
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. Through the unknown, remembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea.
age talent
The great ages did not contain the best talent, they wasted less.
art art-is materials
Art never improves, but... the material of art is never quite the same.
lying father church
O father, father Gone from us, lost to us, The church lies bereft, Alone, Desecrated, desolated. And the heathen shall build On the ruins Their world without God. I see it. I see it.
forgiveness corridors
After such knowledge, what forgiveness?
real mean passion
Anecdote: It is by no means self-evident that human beings are most real when most violently excited; violent physical passions do not in themselves differentiate men from each other, but rather tend to reduce them to the same state.
cracks decay slides
Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, Will not stay still.