Quotes from T. S. Eliot

It [tradition] cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labor.

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.

Whatever you think, be sure it is what you think; whatever you want, be sure that is what you want; whatever you feel, be sure that is what you feel.

People are only influenced in the direction in which they want to go, and influence consists largely in making them conscious of their wishes to proceed in that direction.

If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?

Our difficulties of the moment must always be dealt with somehow, but our permanent difficulties are difficulties of every moment.

It is not necessarily those lands which are the most fertile or most favored in climate that seem to me the happiest, but those in which a long struggle of adaptation between man and his environment has brought out the best qualities of both.

The difference between being an elder statesman And posing successfully as an elder statesman Is practically negligible.

You have now learned to see That cats are much like you and me And other people whom we find Possessed of various types of mind.

In my beginning is my end.

What is actual is actual only for one time, and only for one place.

Genuine blasphemy, genuine in spirit and not purely verbal, is the product of partial belief, and is as impossible to the complete atheist as to the perfect Christian.

What we call the beginning is often an 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.

The Rum Turn Tugger is a terrible bore: When you let him in, then he wants to be out; He's always on the wrong side of every door, And as soon as he's at home, then he'd like to get about.

War is not a life: it is a situation, one which may neither be ignored nor accepted.

Justice itself tends to be corrupted by political passion.

The soul is so far from being a monad that we have not only to interpret other souls to ourself but to interpret ourself to ourself.

April is the cruellest month.

One starts an action simply because one must do something.

It is not necessarily those lands which are the most fertile or most favored climate that seem to me the happiest, but those in which a long stroke of adaptation between man and his environment has brought out the best qualities of both.

All cases are unique and very similar to others.

The poet's mind is ... a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.

Poetry is a mug's game.