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
past times-past quartets
Time present and time past / are both perhaps present in time future.
hope men library
The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man
winter thyme waterfalls
For most of us, there is only the unattended Moment, the moment in and out of time, The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight, The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply That it is not heard at all, but you are the music While the music lasts
struggle alaska lovers
So the lover must struggle for words.
journey littles blind
The destination cannot be described; / You will know very little until you get there; / You will journey blind.
fall night fog
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap And seeing that it was a soft October night Curled once about the house, and fell asleep
children wall hate
I hate university towns and university people, who are the same everywhere, with pregnant wives, sprawling children, many books and hideous pictures on the walls ... Oxford is very pretty, but I don't like to be dead.
creative toil sifting
Probably, indeed, the larger part of the labor of an author composing his work is critical labor; the labor of sifting, combining, constructing, expunging, correcting, testing. This frightful toil is as much critical as creative.
loneliness thinking poetry
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.
meaningful running destiny
Destiny ... a word which means more than we can find any definitions for. It is a word which can have no meaning in a mechanical universe: if that which is wound up must run down, what destiny is there in that? Destiny is not necessitarianism, and it is not caprice: it is something essentially meaningful. Each man has his destiny, though some men are undoubtedly "men of destiny" in a sense in which most men are not.
giving political want
Those who say they give the public what it wants begin by underestimating public taste and end by debauching it.
love inspirational life
It is obvious that we can no more explain a passion to a person who has never experienced it than we can explain light to the blind.
pain freedom liberty
Liberty is a different kind of pain from prison.
death dance recovery
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.