“This is one moment, / But know that another / Shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy.”

— T.S. Eliot , Murder in the Cathedral

Source: Murder in the Cathedral

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "This is one moment, / But know that another / Shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy." by T.S. Eliot?

T.S. Eliot 270

20th century English author 1888–1965

Related quotes

“Beauty can pierce one like pain.”

Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate

Buddenbrooks [Buddenbrooks: Verfall einer Familie, Roman], Pt 11, Ch. 2

“They looked forward to that moment with joy, but without haste, not pining for it, but seeming to have a foretaste of it in their hearts, of which they talked to one another.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

Source: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), IV
Context: They had no temples, but they had a real living and uninterrupted sense of oneness with the whole of the universe; they had no creed, but they had a certain knowledge that when their earthly joy had reached the limits of earthly nature, then there would come for them, for the living and for the dead, a still greater fullness of contact with the whole of the universe. They looked forward to that moment with joy, but without haste, not pining for it, but seeming to have a foretaste of it in their hearts, of which they talked to one another.

“When a dream is born in you
With a sudden clamorous pain,
When you know the dream is true
And lovely, with no flaw nor stain,
O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch
You'll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"A Pinch of Salt".
Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)

“"I would give anything to know what you thought at the moment you died," Pierce said. His voice echoed in the tomb. The flame went out.”

Michael Crichton book Easy Go

Easy Go (1967)

“These sudden joys have sudden endings. They burn up in victory like fire and gunpowder.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

“When you feel someone else's pain and joy as powerfully as if it were your own, then you know you really loved them.”

Ann Brashares book Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Variant: Live, laugh, love.

When you can feel someone else's pain and joy as if it's your own, thats when you know you really love them - Tina Lowell
Source: Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood