Quotes from T.S. Eliot

In a minute there is time  For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

It is essential that a work of art should be self-consistent, that an artist should consciously or unconsciously draw a circle beyond which he does not trespass: on the one hand actual life is always the material, and on the other hand an abstraction from actual life is a necessary condition to the creation of the work of art.

But I deceived myself. It takes so many years To learn that one is dead!

We haven't seen him for nearly eight years; And to tell the truth, now that we've seen him, We're a little worried about his health. He doesn't seem to be . . . quite himself.

And there's my complaint against these ocean liners With all their swimming baths and gymnasiums There's not even a place where a man can go For a quiet smoke, where the women can't follow him. She wouldn't leave him out of her sight.

I would explain, but you would none of you believe it; If you believed it, still you would not understand.

La llum, el recordatori visible de la llum invisible.

Their syntax and choice of words affirm their superiority. You cannot live on a high plane and indulge yourself in verbiage.

No artist produces great art by a deliberate attempt to express his personality. He expresses his personality indirectly through concentrating upon a task which is a task in the same sense as the making of an efficient engine or the turning of a jug or a table-leg.

A poesia de um povo deriva sua vida da fala do povo e, por sua vez, dá-lhe uma vida; e representa o seu ponto mais elevado de consciência, o seu maior poder e a sua mais delicada sensibilidade.

About anyone so great as Shakespeare, it is probable that we can never be right; and if we can never be right, it is better that we should from time to time change our way of being wrong.

why do we huddle together In a horrid amity of misfortune? why should we be implicated, brought in and brought together?

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.

I cannot feel that my appreciation of Milton leads anywhere outside of the mazes of sound.

We most of us seem to live according to circumstance, But with people like him, there's something inside them That accounts for what happens to them.

Every moment is a fresh start

In that case we must say that rhetoric is any adornment or inflation of speech which is not done for a particular effect but for a general impressiveness.

shape without form, shade without colour, paralyzed force, gesture without motion...

But the circle of our understanding Is a very restricted area. Except for a limited number Of strictly practical purposes We do not know what we are doing; And even, when you think of it, We do not know much about thinking.

What is happening outside of the circle? And what is the meaning of happening?

It is only by unremitting effort that we can persist in being individuals in a society, instead of merely members of a disciplined crowd. Yet we remain members of the crowd, even when we succeed in being individuals.

A curse is a power Not subject to reason Each curse has its course Its own way of expiation Follow follow

The world of Swinburne does not depend upon some other world which it simulates; it has the necessary completeness and self-sufficiency for justification and permanence.

For good and ill deeds belong to a man alone, when he stands alone on the other side of death, But here upon earth you have the reward of the good and ill that was done by those who have gone before you. And all that is ill you may repair if you walk together in humble repentance, expiating the sins of your fathers; And all that was good you must fight to keep with hearts as devoted as those of your fathers who fought to gain it.