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T.S. Eliot: 540 quotes53 likes

“O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It's so elegant
So intelligent”

T.S. Eliot book The Waste Land

Source: The Waste Land (1922), Line 128 et seq.

“Whoever has approved this idea of order, of the form of European, of English literature, will not find it preposterous that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. And the poet who is aware of this will be aware of great difficulties and responsibilities.”

T.S. Eliot book Tradition and the Individual Talent

Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

“A dangerous person to disagree with.”

On Samuel Johnson in Homage to John Dryden: Three Essays on Poetry of the Seventeenth Century (1927)

“They say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time
Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!”

T.S. Eliot book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

Macavity: The Mystery Cat
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)

“This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks”

Ash-Wednesday (1930)
Context: And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth
This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

“Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated And let my cry come unto Thee.”

Ash-Wednesday (1930)

“What happens is a continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.”

T.S. Eliot book Tradition and the Individual Talent

Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

“Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
For he's a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.
You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square —
But when a crime's discovered, then Macavity's not there!”

T.S. Eliot book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

Macavity: The Mystery Cat
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)

“Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us — if at all — not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.”

T.S. Eliot book The Hollow Men

The Hollow Men (1925)

“so the countess passed on until she came through the little park, where Niobe presented her with a cabinet, and so departed.”

T.S. Eliot book Poems

"Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a cigar"
Poems (1920)

“And now you live dispersed on ribbon roads,
And no man knows or cares who is his neighbor
Unless his neighbor makes too much disturbance,
But all dash to and fro in motor cars,
Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere.”

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

“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. I mean this as a principle of æsthetic, not merely historical, criticism.”

T.S. Eliot book Tradition and the Individual Talent

Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

“In the vacant places
We will build with new bricks”

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

“I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.”

T.S. Eliot book The Waste Land

Source: The Waste Land (1922), Line 39 et seq.

“The work of creation is never without travail”

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

“The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last
We have not reached conclusion, when I
Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last
I have not made this show purposelessly
And it is not by any concitation
Of the backward devils.
I would meet you upon this honestly.
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?”

T.S. Eliot book Poems

"Gerontion"
Poems (1920)

“He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime — Macavity's not there!”

T.S. Eliot book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

Macavity: The Mystery Cat
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)

“Jellicle Cats come out tonight,
Jellicle Cats come one come all:
The Jellicle Moon is shining bright —
Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball.”

T.S. Eliot book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

The Song of the Jellicles
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)

“Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.”

T.S. Eliot book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

Macavity: The Mystery Cat
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)

“No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous —
Almost, at times, the Fool.”

T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)