T. S. Eliot quotes (20):

  • This is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsNot with a bang but a whimper.
  • April is the cruellest month, breedingLilacs out of the dead land, mixingMemory out of desire, stirringDull roots with spring rain.Winter kept us warm, coveringEarth in a forgetful snow, feedingA little life with dried tubers.
  • Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden. My words echo Thus, in your mind.
  • 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.
  • Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.
  • I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
  • So far as we are human, what we do must be either evil or good so far as we do evil or good, we are human and it is better, in a paradoxical way, to do evil than to do nothing at least we exist.
  • We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion.
  • Only those who will risk going too far Can possibly find out how far one can go.
  • Immature poets imitate mature poets steal.
  • Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge Where is the knowledge we have lost in information
  • And the wind shall say Here were decent godless people. Their only monument the asphalt road. And a thousand lost golf balls.
  • The more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates.
  • Any religion...is for ever in danger of petrifaction into mere ritual and habit, though ritual and habit be essential to religion.
  • We do not quite say that the new is more valuable because it fits in but its fitting in is a test of its value -- a test, it is true, which can only be slowly and cautiously applied, for we are none of us infallible judges of conformity.
  • Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.
  • Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.
  • Humankind cannot stand very much reality.
  • The last temptation is the greatest treason to do the right deed for the wrong reason.
  • Humor is also a way of saying something serious.