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“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
T. S. Eliot4 likes
48 quotes and counting. Scroll to wander through 374,000+ literary moments.
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
“This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.”
“It is in fact a part of the function of education to help us to escape, not from our own time - for we are bound by that - but from the intellectual and emotional limitations of our time.”
“Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”
“Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.”
“Poetry is a mug's game.”
“I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope, For hope would be hope for the wrong thing.”
“The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink.”
“So I find words I never thought to speak In streets I never thought I should revisit When I left my body on a distant shore.”
“Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past.”
“All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance, All our ignorance brings us nearer to death, But nearness to death no nearer to God. Where is the life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”
“Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.”
“I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”
“Business today consists in persuading crowds.”
“The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.”
“No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead.”
“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.”
“O Lord, deliver me from the man of excellent intention and impure heart: for the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”
“People to whom nothing has ever happened cannot understand the unimportance of events.”
“So the lover must struggle for words.”
“Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance”
“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.”
“Television is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.”
“I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”
“I suppose some editors are failed writers - but so are most writers.”
“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.”
“All significant truths are private truths. As they become public they cease to become truths; they become facts, or at best, part of the public character; or at worst, catchwords.”
“For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.”
“Knowledge is invariably a matter of degree: you cannot put your finger upon even the simplest datum and say this we know.”
“This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.”
“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”
“The only wisdom we can hope to acquire Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.”
“Sometimes things become possible if we want them bad enough.”
“We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; - The Hollow Men”
“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.”
“Every experience is a paradox in that it means to be absolute, and yet is relative; in that it somehow always goes beyond itself and yet never escapes itself.”
“You are the music while the music lasts.”
“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”
“You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends, And how, how rare and strange it is, to find In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends, (For indeed I do not love it ... you knew? you are not blind! How keen you are!) To find a friend who has these qualities, Who has, and gives Those qualities upon which friendship lives. How much it means that I say this to you- Without these friendships-life, what cauchemar!”
“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.”
“So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”
“Our high respect for a well read person is praise enough for literature.”
“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.”
“And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor - And this, and so much more? -”
“If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?”
“Where is the wisdom? We lost in knowledge Where is the wisdom we lost in knowledge? ?????”
“Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea.”
“There is shadow under this red rock // (Come in under the shadow of this red rock) // And I will show you something different from either // Your shadow at morning striding behind you // Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you // I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”